Jade Temepara

Jade Temepara's gardening knowledge was gifted to her as a child learning from her Koro how to grow kai. She would often follow both of them around asking questions and being told stories of where the precious seeds had come from. It was a seed dropped into her very being. As she grew up and had children she often longed to provide food fresh and started a journey of discovery to nourish her children and then her wider community.

Jade is the founder of Hand Over A Hundy: a one-year challenge to young families to learn to grow and produce their own vegetable gardens. They are sponsored 'a hundy' (or $100) to buy all the essentials for their gardens with the challenge not only of learning the art of gardening but also of producing more than they need—to sell a hundy dollars’ worth and pass that on to the next family at the end of the year.

Here’s the tricky part… these families are new to the gardening game, have tried and failed before or are too scared to even give it a go on their own!

Jade won NZ Gardener of the Year 2011 and a Silver Award at Ellerslie International Flower Show 2012.