Page updated:
Friday, 7 September 2007

FOOD systems...

Growing the community way

Jean Pierre and a gardener display their day's harvest

The Randwick garden has been in use for five years but Glovers Community Garden, in the grounds of an old hospital in Rozelle, has been going since 1986 and is Sydney's oldest community garden. Melbourne's Nunawading Community Garden, first cultivated in October 1977, is credited with being Australia's first.

An inventory of community gardens compiled by the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network in 1996 identified more than 40 across the country. The number is now in excess of 100 since government housing departments in Victoria and NSW have facilitated their development and since local government has recognised community gardening as a valid urban landuse.

"Our intention has been to get community gardening recognised by local government as a suitable use of urban land", said Fiona Campbell, NSW spokeswoman for the Network.

"We have succeeded in this to such as extent that a number of local governments have initiated community gardens themselves rather than wait for members of the community to approach them. Community gardening, once practiced by only a few people, is now mainstream".

Overseas, the number of community gardens is growing with thousands throughout the US, the UK and Europe. In New York City alone there are around 700 gardens, some under the Green Thumb programme coordinated by the Green Guerillas, a group working since 1973 to turn disused and waste-strewn lots into vibrant gardens.

Community gardening is an activity for all ages

Land of many uses

Community gardens are places where people grow food and socialise. They help to alleviate the isolation of urban living and turn unused land to productive use. The gardens regreen the urban landscape and serve as environmental education centres for surrounding communities and nearby schools. Some have been used for local government green waste reduction workshops, others by community college gardening classes, some by schools.

The multitude of uses they are venue to depends on the interests of the gardeners. Some want only to garden quietly, others adopt a social agenda. Gardeners at Brisbane's Northey Street City Farm, for instance, operate a Work for the Dole training programme and a successful Saturday morning organic farmer's market, an idea taken up more recently by gardeners at Collingwood Children's Farm in Melbourne. The Northery Street crew have received support from Brisbane City Council; they have planted an extensive bush food garden and offer workshops to the public.

In recent years professional community workers have adopted community gardens for their work. Kerryn Valeontis, community worker at Western Sydney's Holy Family Centre, coordinates a community gardening team that includes immigrants and a children's gardening group and that supplies surplus produce to the church's food programme.

Fresh vegetables and herbs are the main crop in community gardens. Some feature fruit trees and a few have groups that care for chickens to obtain a supply of eggs at minimal cost.

Whatever the gardeners choose to grow, many of the them adopt organic growing methods. Organic gardening is cheaper than buying artificial fertiliser, herbicide and pesticides and produces foods that the gardeners can be assured are chemical-free and safe to eat. Importantly, the gardens are great recycling centres, making use of kitchen and garden wastes and straw from nearby stables.

Susan plants out a late season crop at Angel Street Community Garden, Newtown

A different approach

Walk through Sydney's Angel Street Permaculture Garden in inner-urban Newtown, then take the winding path through the UNSW Community Permaculture Garden and one thing will become apparent - community gardens are all organised differently.

The Angel Street garden is tucked away behind a high school - the school owns the land it is on - and members share the work and the produce. At Randwick members have their own allotments and exclusive rights to whatever they produce in them. Like other allotment gardens, Randwick also has a shared gardening area for people who cannot garden regularly but who still want to grow some of their own food, and like the UNSW garden Randwick has a chicken flock that is managed by a team who share costs, work and eggs.

There is plenty of evidence that both approaches - shared and allotment gardening - work well. The choice is up to the gardeners.

Most community gardens occupy local government land, a few, church property and a small number make use of disused land in school grounds.

Gardens as social asset

Not far from Fitzroy's cafe strip in inner-city Melbourne stands the state government's Fitzroy Estate high-rise apartments - huge squares of concrete set in open parkland, the artifacts of 1960s theories about town planning. But unlike most such buildings those in Fitzroy have their feet firmly planted in a community garden.

The garden, and others at a nearby Collingwood housing estate, owe much to Basil Natoli, an enthusiastic horticulturist-community worker who gained the confidence of the tower block residents, mainly Hmong, Turkish and Asian immigrants, and stimulated their interest in community food gardening.

The garden beds of the Fitzroy Estate are intensively worked; crops of Asian and European vegetables are closely planted and produce a harvest for the tower block's families. To reduce maintenance and increase durability, the garden beds are made of concrete blocks and timber sleepers and, for ease of access, are raised above the paved paths. It is a similar scene in the three Waterloo Estate community gardens in inner-Sydney, all are set among the towers that dominate the South Sydney skyline.

The idea to start the Wateroo Estate gardens came from UNSW social work students that are based on the estate to gain experience. They obtained support from South Sydney Council through Council's community waste educator, Rhonda Hunt. Rhonda, a trained community worker, was instrumental in starting the community garden behind the nearby Waterloo Uniting Church.

Far from Sydney's inner city, out in the south-west near Campbelltown, community gardening has played another role in bringing local people together. There, common land on the then-crime ridden Claymore Estate was taken over by local people and turned it into a large community garden, Now, where once police pursuits took place, residents have built gardens reminiscent of South Pacific bush gardens with rows of taro, sugar cane, bananas and vegetables where once only lawn grew.

In Claymore, Waterloo, Collingwood and Fitzroy, community gardens have become true community-building venues. They combine access to nutritious food with healthy outdoor recreation and the re-creation of a sense of place.

A new idea only ten years ago, community gardens are now fixtures in Australian towns and cities.