Growing together: Costa’s mission to grow fruit in remote communities

In the garden of a yellow brick house that backs onto the ranges and riverbed that wrap around the remote community of Utju / Areyonga, Joy Kunia points to where she hopes a fruit tree will be planted in the soil.

Her garden uses old washing machine tubs and the bottoms of wheelie bins as beds for her flowers — a small-scale, circular economy in the West MacDonnell Ranges, 200 kilometres west of Alice Springs.

In this yard, date palms stand as tall reminders of the past.

It was once the garden of the late Lutheran Pastor Leo Kelleske, whose grape vines and date trees are recalled through the smiles of the old people here.

And Costa the Garden Gnome, also known as Australian gardening icon Costa Georgiadis, is in the community to help bring those memories back to life — one fruit tree at a time.

A cost-of-living lifeline

Alongside fellow television personality scrapboy, of animated children's series dirtgirlworld, Georgiadis has been travelling through remote Aboriginal communities to deliver the Healthy Kids, Healthy Futures program with the MacDonnell Regional Council.

The pair have come to the tiny Pitjantjatjara-speaking community on Western Arrarnta country with avocado, fig and mulberry seedlings to plant in the ground.

Fresh fruit and veggies can be impossibly expensive at shops in remote communities, adding an extra layer of meaning to the program.

"It's a real privilege to come in and introduce these ideas, that then their elders and their families can latch on to and take it to that next level of understanding, [of] the growing and the harvest," Georgiadis says.

After scouting spots for trees, Georgiadis and scrapboy get the kids involved with singing and games.

About 15 children trail behind Georgiadis in his gnome hat and steampunk-style welding goggles to the schoolyard, crowding around as he holds up a seedling.

The "two-ways learning" school, which has been teaching in both Pitjantjatjara and English since 1973, has been doing some gardening lessons of their own in their leafy edible garden beds.

Georgiadis shows the children how the roots release from the pot by tapping them with a shovel, before the kids pour water into the soil to ready it for its new leafy tenant.

They giggle in delight as he squelches the soggy dirt through his hands.

Desert-proof technology

MacDonnell Regional Council area manager Stuart Millar is responsible for finding the new planter pots Georgiadis is using, which were designed for sandy deserts of the United Arab Emirates to preserve water.

He says he hopes more fruit trees will be planted in front yards across the community.

"It's about as vital as it can be, especially out here in the desert … the more self sufficient, the better it is for everybody," he says.

Areyonga Local Authority chairperson Sarah Gallagher was born here and grew up in the community, where wild donkeys roam across the rocky landscape.

She watches as tweens Louanne, Geraldine and Sharnita proudly show off their home for the television stars. 

Giggling into each other's ears, the girls explain that the word for tree in Pitjantjatjara is "punu", that water is "kapi", and that they need each other to grow.

"They're having fun, enjoying their lives, singing and dancing, and making good plans for the community," Ms Gallagher says.