Barry’s green thumbs help Kandahar Home’s veges grow

Kandahar Home resident Barry Jepsen working away in the garden.


Residents and staff at Enliven’s Kandahar Home are enjoying a bounty of fresh produce from their own gardens, some of it thanks to hard work from resident Barry Jepsen.

Some of the vegetables are growing from seeds, planted and tended to by Barry.

“I do what gardening I can,” he says. One regular job for him is going out and spraying the plants with a concoction to help them flower and grow more fruit.

Gardening is in Barry’s blood – his father was a market gardener in Manawatu and passed his knowledge on to his kids.

“He taught us a lot, including not to grow anything unless you can eat it,” Barry says.

He is an avid fan of fruit and would love to see more fruit trees planted on the grounds of Kandahar Home, he says.

Over summer, staff and residents harvested plums off an existing plum tree at the home and made plum jam.

Kandahar Home recreation officer Di McCuish says Barry’s efforts have helped them to create a ‘garden to table’ experience over summer.

“We have been busy in our recreation kitchen cooking the produce from our garden for all to enjoy.”

As well as plum jam, staff and residents have made lemon cordial, zucchini quiche and enjoyed snacking on strawberries.

Di says a big hit was the potatoes grown in buckets by residents that were then dug up and cooked with mint and served up with butter.


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