It might look like a pile of dirt but soon the community gardens at the Rotorua Youth Centre will be giving youth vital life and business skills.
Volunteers planted five raised gardens at the weekend, mostly with brassicas, such as cabbage and silver beet, project leader Colleen Mullin said.
The Big Dig project is being run under the Project Generate banner, which is the youth centre's inter-generational programme in which oldies and youth mix to swap skills.
"The idea is to grow food so people can learn how food is grown and then it comes into our kitchen and they can learn how to prepare it and serve it," said Ms Mullin.
"It's about learning the whole cycle to stop thinking that food comes from a packet.