Characters of the Community Farm

If you ever find yourself in Addington, a neighborhood in Christchurch in between Riccarton and the CBD, take a walk down Parlane Street. Tucked between houses 37 and 39 you’ll see a sign. If the sign says “OPEN TODAY”, wander back and into the secret garden that is the Addington Community Farm. 

There are many things to love about this little corner of the universe. The cats, for starters, James Bond and Casper, who will sidle up to you and sit in your lap while you drink tea in the greenhouse. The work, too, dirty fingernails and the certain satisfaction that comes from watching the fruits of your labor, literally. Sometimes, I even get to weed whack, one of life’s greatest pleasures. The vegetables are delicious, too, which every volunteer walks away with, bags full of free, fresh-as-can-be veggies rapidly spreading outwards from this point, making the community just a little bit happier and healthier every day. But most of all, the reason to come to the Addington Community Farm is the people, the eclectic crew of folks who gather there Monday through Wednesday afternoons to get their hands dirty and share space with their neighbors. 

There’s Wilby, the farm manager, who oversaw my work this semester and keeps the train on the tracks. Wilby leads the farm with a firm but gentle hand, plentiful smiles, and a constant infusion of te reo Maori words into his everyday speech. 

There’s Jane, a faithful volunteer who helps out with the local school and is often trailed by some of her adolescent kids, who are shy but hardworking and always uncovering some new critter. 

There are multiple Davids, one who is always talking about the goings-on of the neighborhood and imparting me with Kiwi wisdom, and another who is quiet and monosyllabic. One time, David 2 and I were the only ones left at the farm when Wilby heard news that the new farm site was toxin-free, and the three of us shared a delighted moment in the greenhouse, pouring over toxicity level spreadsheets and clapping with joy. 

There’s Alice, who loves the farm so much she’s gone back to school to study regenerative agriculture, who once brought boxes upon boxes of baby presents to Wilby ahead of the birth of his daughter. Alice is shy when you first get to know her but opens up fast, and is one of the heartbeats of the farm.

On Mondays in the Summer and Fall, the Best Life crew would come for an hour and a half, a group of young adults with a variety of needs who do various volunteering and other activities around Christchurch. I was asked to do some short environmental ed lessons with them at the end of their work periods, and these were some of the sweetest memories of my time on the farm. We created rainbows from things we found around the garden, gathered items that appealed to all of the senses, and talked about what critters could be found in the soil. Sitting around a table picking spinach seeds with them, I got to hear all about their inner dynamics, and we were rarely not laughing together in those hours. 

There’s James, who saw me wearing a green knit hat and repeatedly hounded me to get my friend of a friend to make him his own rasta man hat, who was always full of crazy stories about Australia and his past. One time, Lodie, Lily, James, Wilby, and I went to a secondary farm location where they grow only many carrots, and on a baking hot early March day we weeded three wildly overgrown beds and ate melting ice pops in the shade.

There are the many excellent bakers of the farm, and the pack of three women who were always squawking at each other in the enclosed tunnels. Marie the medical biologist, who told me she had Covid while we pulled weeds together two feet apart, and Juliet who always wanted to talk about Trump with me. Later in the semester, I met Belle, young and newly transplanted from the UK, who I’d always swap hut recommendations with among the lettuce beds.

About every hour or so, Wilby calls for us to stop working and take tea, which we drink at the picnic table near the entrance to the farm. Usually someone would have made a baked good, and I have the fondest memories of almond scones and rhubarb crisps eaten out of mugs with mismatched utensils alongside warm cups of tea on golden autumn afternoons. One day I was tasked with picking kumquats off a tree, which as it turns out were very much not kumquats, but weird, spiky, seedy fruits we never really figured out. On my last day in the farm, I brought in two containers of squashed baked goods which had come all over the country with us on a backpacking trip but never been eaten. I was glad to give back a treat to the people who had kept me so well fed, both physically and emotionally.

I found the farm as a way to continue my fellowship this semester, and I kept going because of how much I loved the people. From my very first day, in which I met with Wilby for all of ten minutes before he asked if I was ready to do some weeding, I knew it was a special spot and a place I’d be grateful to have frequented. Eventually, my friends started coming too, and we’d bike over together in a pack, going to the Addington Co-op to drink coffee and do work either before or after our labor on the farm, another beloved Christchurch tradition. I loved my time on the farm immensely. It rekindled in me a love of all things gardening and landscaping, it got me off campus, and it introduced me to a wonderful little corner of this delightful country. For the stories, the veggies, and the tea, I am immensely grateful. I will remember this as one corner of my abroad experience that helped me connect to the place more than perhaps anything else. I’ll never forget that little alley between 37 and 39, and the beautiful, zany crew of people who love it even more than I do.