HOSPITAL GARDEN

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23977, 18 June 1943, Page 4

HOSPITAL GARDEN

BOARD BUYS MARSHLAND PROPERTY VEGETABLE PRODUCTION FOR INSTITUTIONS A market garden property of seven acres in the Marshland district has been purchased by the North Canterbury Hospital Board with the approval of the Minister of Health (the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer). The property, which includes an acre of glasshouses, will be used to provide tomatoes, lettuce, cucumbers, and other vegetables for the board’s 21 institutions from Ashburton to Kaikoura, and will be worked in conjunction with other garden properties round Christchurch. The secretary of the board (Mr A. Prentice) emphasised yesterday that the property would not be used as a commercial market garden. Everything pro. duced there would be absorbed by the board’s institutions, and there would be no surplus to dispose of in the local market. Last year more than £3OOO worth of vegetables were produced in the board’s gardens, and at present 1536 patients and staff of the Christchurch area were being supplied with fresh vegetables every day. Mr Prentice said the property was formerly the nursery of A. V. Gibson and Sons, and was situated on some of the best land in the Marshland district. It was at the corner of Marshland and McSaveney’s roads, and was on the daily supply route from the Christchurch Hospital’s main store to the Burwood Hospital. There were nine glasshouses, all except one being heated, and in these it was proposed to grow tomatoes, cucumbers, winter lettuce, and winter spinach. One house was fitted up as a vinery, and grapes would be grown there. The six acres of open land could be used for onions, carrots, beans, silver beet, and other staple crops of the district. In addition special vegetables for diets prescribed by the board’s dietitians could be grown under glass.