Dig this! NZ's top gardener is a nun
24 Oct 2008
An 86-year-old Wellington nun, who set up a community garden scheme, has been voted New Zealand's Gardener of the Year.
Sister Loyola Galvin from the Home of Compassion in the coastal suburb of Island Bay was the clear winner in the annual NZ Gardener Magazine competition which recognises New Zealand's unsung horticultural heroes.
The slightly built former nurse took up gardening in her early 70s and at 81 took a permaculture course, learning the finer points of holistic and sustainable gardening. She then set aside an area of lawn behind the Home of Compassion for her Common Ground community garden scheme to help apartment dwellers who had no land to grow food.
Divine help
Now Sister Loyola can be found seven days a week, rain or shine, tending to her vegetables in the allotment-style gardens and admits to regularly praying for divine intervention to help her plants grow.
"We're dealing with God's creations and I often ask that our efforts be successful because we're dealing with such beautiful things. I love it, and anything you love grows. Children that I've loved grew and I've done that all my life.
"So now I'm doing it with plants," says Sister Loyola.
Waiting list
The home now has a 4ha area of garden with a common ground and 16 individual plots producing fresh produce for people ''living in a concrete jungle''. Sister Loyola says there is also a waiting list of ''green fingered townies wanting to grow veges''.
She says her home-grown lettuces outshone any supermarket-bought variety and her broad beans and spring onions were simply unbeatable.
The secret to a great garden was knowing good weeds from bad, never using chemical pesticides or fertilisers, and always making your own compost - preferably out of south coast seaweed or fresh horse manure.
True inspiration
Sister Loyola says she planned to use her $5,000 prize money to coax more old folk to get out of their rockers and into the vege plot. "Aren't I lucky to be as fit as I am at my age? I'm trying to encourage older people like myself not to give up when they're 65 and say, `I've had it'."
''Sister Loyola is a true inspiration,'' says NZ Gardener editor Lynda Hallinan. ''You’ll find her outdoors, whatever the weather, potting up seedlings, making compost and sharing her warmth and wisdom with beginner gardeners.
''She is right up there with celebrity chefs such as Jamie Olivier in pioneering growing your own food. Her community gardening scheme was ahead of its time,'' she says.
Runner up
The runner-up for NZ Gardener 2008 Gardener of the Year was Auckland’s 87-year-old Margaret Jones. Margaret joined the Soil and Health Association in 1941 and, 67 years later, her motto is still: "Don’t panic, it’s organic."
Lynda Hallinan says: ''Margaret Jones is living proof that eating organic food is good for you. She hasn’t been to a doctor in 30 years and, as well as all her community work, she still has plenty of energy to go dancing twice a week.''
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