ACFCGN newsletter Spring 2008

Community HARVEST Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network — building local food cultures ­— SPRING 2008

inside...

It’s an urban food revolution............................. 3 Way down south................................................ 6 A short walk in small vegetative paradise....... 8 Sydney community gardeners’ big day out.... 11 A new policy enables community gardening. 12 Calendar team seeks support ......................... 15 What’s news....................................................... 16 Community gardening in New Zealand .......... 18 Big year for Cultivating Community................. 22 Fresh food markets in public housing............... 24 Food localisation............................................... 25 School gardens.................................................. 28 Tasty readings . ................................................. 34

australian city far ms & community gardens network

community harvest community culture

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f anything confirms the fact that community gardening is now a validated and established landuse in our towns and

cities, it is the move of local government into the activity.

Of course, there are still recalcitrant councils here and there that exhibit unadaptive behaviour when it comes to urban food production by making it difficult to start community gardens and city farms. Then there are the few that are so encrusted with the rust of bureaucracy that they bog the simple act of facilitating community gardening in a swamp of excessive regulation.

Enlightened local government in Sydney is now formulating policy on community gardening in much the same way that New Zealand’s Auckland City Council has done.

Marrickville Council made the first move when it commissioned the editor of Community Harvest to produce policy direction recommendations on community gardening.

Next, Woollahra Council adopted a policy to assist the new Paddington Community Garden in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs.

Soon after, Faith Thomas, a young and vivacious permaculture designer who has the Living Schools consultancy, developed policy directions and a community gardening guide for City of Sydney. And just recently, Faith and the editor of Community Harvest teamed up to produce community gardening policy direction

Community Harvest is the magazine of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network: ­

recommendations and to help local people start the new Carss Park Community Garden for Kogarah Municipal Council.

And more still The good news is that the number of community gardens nation-wide is increasing.

In Melbourne, Cultivating Community (see their report in this edition) has started construction of a number of new gardens on public housing estates. They have also built a new brick oven adjacent to a community garden so as to create a community kitchen. That’s the type of innovative thinking that adds value to community gardens by expanding their role as social venues.

Gardening the global food crisis Ever since UNDP published their Urban Agriculture — Food, Jobs and Sustainable Cities, the potential for bringing food production back to our cities has been clear. Now, with the world food crisis generating food riots and unaffordable food, as crops are diverted from the global food market into the biofuel tanks of the world’s vehicle fleet, the true value of community gardens and city farms for human nutrition and urban food security offers an added impetus to their expansion.

This edition of Community Harvest reports the initiatives of those urban food producers who are making our cities humane and productive places to live. ...Russ Grayson, editor

• Editor: Russ Grayson info@pacific-edge.info • Unacknowledged articles by Russ Grayson • Designer: Fiona Campbell All text and images remain the copyright of their authors/producers unless otherwise stated.

All care taken but no responsibility accepted for the consequences of trying anything described in Community Harvest.

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www.communitygarden.org.au Cover photo: Cringila primary students with tamarillos.

Behind: Care Design’s Aaron Sorensen and New Zealand permaculture educator, Robina McCurdy

www.communitygarden.org.au

australian city far ms & community gardens network

Hand out the seeds and hand tools because there’s something in the air...

...it’s an urban food revolution

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t first it was just a feeling, but suddenly it’s a fact — something, some fundamental shift in the consciousness

of the sustainability-aware is occurring, and it’s found a foothold in this country.

At the moment it’s a foothold in the minds of society’s innovative fringe, but it’s quickly spreading to the early adopters. There, it will blossom into new ideas and new models.

The models we are talking about are those of new urban food systems. Not just new, but reconfigured, redesigned and repurposed existing food systems. Their usefulness will be demonstrated as societies transition from the waste of glut and plenty to a world in which people wake up one morning to find that the oil that keeps our societies and food systems going is suddenly increasingly expensive and increasingly unavailable.

There is no doubt that our societies and our food systems face significant challenges. There’s the peaking of global oil extraction after which food is expected to progressively increase in price, the limitations imposed by a declining fresh water resource (remember that agriculture uses 65 -70 per cent of our fresh water supply), the probability of declining phosphate (used to manufacture fertiliser) within a few decades, limited natural gas resources and a warming climate that is predicted to lead to further drying and drought in some areas and more rain and flooding in others.

The need to develop new food systems — new ways to get food from farmer’s field to the urban dinner plate — became clear at late May’s Go Local conference in Brisbane.

There, among the 250 or so innovators brought together by Ken MCLeod, then with the Ethos Foundation, were many actively engaged in pioneering new approaches to food distribution. If any significant idea came from this gathering of thinkers, activists and social entrepreneurs it was that we need to start the development of new models for www.communitygarden.org.au

food production, processing and distribution.

Likewise, the idea that we adopt new approaches to the installation of solar water heaters and photovoltaic arrays that scale-up the existing ‘cottage industry’ model of one-off installation — which is too little, too late — received a sympathetic hearing.

Listening to this, I was reminded of the words of ex-NASA scientist, Dr Robert Gillman, during his 1995 visit to Australia. Addressing gatherings in Sydney and Adelaide, Dr Gillman stressed the need for sites where the public can see practical sustainability ideas and technologies in action. Here, ideas could be prototyped and visitors would come to see them as efficient, practical and desirable.

Fortunately, Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network members, like CERES, Beelarong Community Farm and Northey Street City Farm, have developed the types of venues that Dr Gillman described.

Additional to these are the growing number of community gardens adopting sustainability education as a part of their operation.

New models of urban sustainability Go Local was not the first conference to address our food future in terms of the transitional initiatives we need to create resilient

Australian Community Foods ...a web portal for people interested in healthy, local foods, hosting: • Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network — find-a-community-garden • Australian Farmers’ Market Association • Seedsavers’ Network • Grassroots & Community Supported Agriculture • Co-ops, Cafes, & FarmGate sales.

www.communityfoods.com.au

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australian city far ms & community gardens network

communities — those capable of adapting to

Attending Go Local were some already taking

changing climatic, environmental and economic

action towards localisation:

pressures. The Feeding Our Future conference

• Sonya Wallace and Janet Millington from the Sunshine Coast’s Energy Action Centre (SEAC); Sonya is the transition region coordinator and SEAC, which is well advanced in what they call an ‘energy decent action plan’ for the region to guide it through a peak oil/high fuel cost/global warming future (www.seac.net.au)

in Lismore, a joint production of Southern Cross University (in particular, water systems researcher Leigh Davidson) and Lismore City Council, highlighted the idea of localised food systems and presented some models.

Localisation is a process of producing and processing foods within a region, for consumption within that region to the extent that is practical, and that takes into account the sustainability of soil and water resources.

Rather than simply a measure to reduce food miles, localisation seeks to rebuild local economies by extending local sourcing to other needs such as water and energy supply and the provision of services.

Brisbane a focus of food activity Attending Go Local were people from a number of Brisbane-based food initiatives: • Northey Street City Farm, the city’s major sustainability education venue with its popular Sunday morning growers’ market, workshops for the public, schools’ program and the availability of Accredited Permaculture Training with City Farm educator, Dick Copeman (www.northeystreetcityfarm.org.au) • Food Connect, Australia’s largest CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) that provides direct connection between farmers (about 80 per cent are organic growers) and urban eaters via a food subscription service, offering a weekly box of fresh, in-season foods (www.foodconnect.com.au ) • Spiral Community Hub in West End, which manages a market garden and the Paradise Street Community Garden for workplace training programs (www.spiral.org.au) • the social enterprise, Growing Communities, an offshoot of Northey Street City Farm, that provides consultancy services for school and community garden development (www.growingcommunities.org.au).

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• Amadis and Gilbert Lacheta, whose consultancy, Village Well, provides ‘placemaking’ services that ‘turn public spaces into places which engage those who inhabit them’ (http://www.villagewell.org/ drupal/index.php?q=our_services_cultural); Amadis also offers edible landscaping services through Urban Permaculture (www.urbanpermaculture.com.au) • Carolyn Nuttall, the ‘learnscaper’ who developed the use of school gardens for educational purposes and who has written a number of books on the topic (see page 34) • Cityfood Growers, a grassroots organisation for those interested in eating or producing locally grown organic food; the organisation provides localised growing information and an online marketplace (www.cityfoodgrowers.com.au) • Mitra Ardron, whose social enterprise, Beyond Building (www. beyondbuildingenergy.com), operates a bulk buy photovoltaic scheme bringing cheaper solar electricity through its Solar Neighbourhood Programme • sustainability bulk buy schemes Redlands Sustainability Cooperative (www.redlandsco-op.com.au) and Sustainable Maleny (www.sustainablemaleny.org), planning bulk buy/cheaper access to solar hot water systems, photovoltaics and, perhaps, electric motor scooters.

These were only a few of the social innovators present, but their participation indicates the growing trend towards new forms of social action, forms in which the development of new food systems are an integral part. www.communitygarden.org.au

australian city far ms & community gardens network

CERES Organic Market ...where it's OK to LOVE your fruit and veg Every Wednesday and Saturday —9am to 1pm CERES Organic Market plays a vital role in Melbourne’s local food network. The market sells freshly harvested produce from our own market garden and the social food enterprises we support, and we share food mile info about all of our produce. Each week, in all weather, we sell the best local produce from small, sustainable and local growers and backyard producers around Melbourne. A vibrant atmosphere with live music and craft stalls, the market is the centre of our food network.

At CERES Market and Shoppe you can get: • sensational local organic sourdough breads and pastries • bulk organic and biodynamic wholefoods • cleaning products for your home and body (greywater friendly) • fairtrade coffees, teas and Australian chocolates • Biodynamic wines and organic spirits • fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit • CERES famous fresh laid eggs... and more.

The Urban Orchard CERES Farm is the pioneer of the Urban Orchard project where excess fruit from local backyards is traded, donated or given away at the CERES Organic Market each week. The project counts over 140 households as members and aims to minimise organic food waste, reduce food miles and promote locally grown backyard produce.

Perth City Farm

Organic Growers’ market WHEN: Saturdays 8am till noon.

WHERE: East Perth City Farm, East Perth.

WHY: To bring you the best produce at a good price... tasty, tangy, terrific food INFORMATION: www.cityfarmperth.org.au

new resource for local food educators...

think global: eat local SEED International’s short video is an energising way to introduce training on food issues and the values of local food.

Producers, Morag Gamble & Evan Raymond, have travelled far to document the many innovative initiatives in local food systems. This is a great resource for educators and local food advocates.

Order your copy: www.localfood.net.au

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New food models in old cities... Hannah Malone reports...

Way down south...

...gardens, co-ops ...and a convivial conference

D

own here in Tasmania, gardens are

growing as is our community of active people passionately committed to growing a healthy future. As winter started to creep into our lives we found ourselves recouping, reflecting, eating pumpkin soup and digesting all the exciting garden projects that are happening.

While Tasmania is the birthplace of Permaculture, the Greens and numerous other groups and individuals doing great things, there has been the unfortunate pattern of these concepts and people leaving the state and flourishing elsewhere. So, a few of us have decided to get busy and create a pumping community growing food and other good ideas for change.

Pumping good communities On the 10th and 11th November 2007, almost 100 community and school garden enthusiasts gathered in Lenah Valley, near Hobart, for the Growing Communities Conference. Also attending were council members, teachers, community development workers and the

But the most awesome thing about this gathering was witnessing people making connections, having the realisations that they weren’t alone in what they are doing and people feeling inspired and supported to start or continue the great work they’re doing in their own communities. We’re planning to hold another one at the end of this year, again to keep the momentum going.

Community gardening in Taroona Recently, a new community garden has popped up in Taroona (Hobart) and another one is being planned as an addition to our organic food coop — also in Hobart — that’s being built.

The co-op is 100 per cent voluntary run.

The collective applied and got funding last year to build the co-op a permanent building on the grounds of the uni. It’s a demonstration as to how to build sustainably using straw bales and timber gleaned from local council removal of trees from parklands. It will include a grey water system and, potentially, a micro-hydro set-up utilising the creek running through the site. Extra produce from the garden will be sold through the co-op, with the potential for a small community market to spring into life in the future.

general community, all of whom networked,

And Victorians, too

learned and shared skills about growing food

Peta Christensen and Chris Ennis came

for a better world.

over from Victoria to share their inspiring

The program was action-packed, practical and engaging, involving both local and interstate presenters. Phil Tidey from Wynyard Community Garden, Liz Smith from Cygnet Community Garden and Mark Healy from Kingston Community Garden got the ball rolling by talking about their experiences with establishing and running community gardens.

experiences from around the globe.

Workshops ranged from food security, school/community gardening, Permaculture, seed saving to conflict resolution. The

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community garden across the road provided a great space for practical workshops.

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Since 2000, Peta Christensen has worked for Cultivating Community (www. cultivatingcommunity.org.au) in developing community and school kitchen gardens and have worked in public housing and the Maribynong Detention Centre. She has run not-for-profit community produce markets and is currently working on the development of a sustainable community food system for the City of Yarra.

www.communitygarden.org.au

Chris Ennis spent the last six years at CERES Organic Farm (www.ceres.org), helping to grow a model local food system that inspires urban farmers, teachers and food shoppers with its three acres (1.2ha) of organic market garden, an organic food market and cafe, urban orchard project, community co-ops, mushroom growing, food processing and propagation enterprises — all integrated with training programs for adults, school students and young adults with intellectual disabilities.

• garden pathways — education, training and enterprise with Tim Tabart from the Tasmanian Council of Social Services • nutrition in the garden — with Julie Williams from the Community Nutrition Unit.

An open forum concluded the first day and, on Sunday, a large crowd still had energy for the gardens tour which took in Woodbridge School, Tarremah Steiner School and Taroona Community Garden.

Talk, training & conviviality

Feedback positive, future inspiring

A panel discussion about school gardens

We received tremendous feedback about the

involving Suzanne Purdon from Herdsmans Cove Primary School, Linda McKee — who’s had lots of experience with school gardens in Queensland — and Miriam Herzfeld (on behalf of Denise Delphine from Rocherlea Peace Garden).

Following a healthy and super-delicious feed, it was into the afternoon’s concurrent workshops which included: • how to create a garden bed — Steve Solomon style with Steve Solomon, well known author of Growing Vegetables South of Australia (http://www.soilandhealth.org/05steve%27sfol der/05aboutmeindex.html) • integrating school gardens into curriculum with Nel Smit, teacher and coordinator of Woodbridge School Garden • no-dig gardens and using waste as a resource, with Marieke Van Dijke and Alister Mackinnon, who are experienced in property planning and design, sustainable communities, natural resource management and healthy homes.

Education, permaculture, gardening After another break, delegates participated in one of the following workshops: • permaculture — with Della Cooper from the Permaculture Association of Tasmania • soil amelioration — with David Stephen from Creek Road and Taroona community gardens • experiences at the Ravenswood Community Garden — with Sue Jacobs, teacher and coordinator of this school and community garden

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conference as well as a lot of inspiration for future activities to promote community and school gardening.

Next year, we hope to continue our work by organising a Kitchen Garden Road Show. Stay tuned for more details.

Special thanks to all the presenters and delegates, and also to the organising group and volunteers on the day, in particular Hannah Moloney, David Stephen, Della Cooper, Cameron McKinnon, Jacquie Maginnis and Susan McLeod. And, also, to our sponsors Veolia Environmental Services. Thanks to the Department of Education and the Cancer Council Tasmania for providing in-kind support.

Schools to be positive action hubs In other news, there’s a funky organisation down here called Sustainable Living Tasmania (www.tasmanianenvironmentcentre. org.au) which is doing great work creating solutions to issues such as climate change.

One such project they’re working on is a sustainable school expo which will bring schools, teachers and the community together to explore ways in which schools can be hubs of positive action. There’s a lot of excitement about school gardens in Tasmania with food gardens popping up throughout the state.

So there’s heaps happening down on this little island.

We’re all very excited.

Contact Hannah Moloney of you’d like any more info or to network: bikemeup@gmail.com

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a short walk in a small vegetative paradise To walk through North Wollongong Community Garden is to take a walk along what looks and feels like a bush track. The difference is that the trees above have been selected to yield food , mulch and habitat and the shrubs that create the sheltered, secluded and close ambience yield fruit.

Aaron Sorensen and New Zealand community catalyst and permaculture educator, Robina McCurdy, in the forest garden.

A

s if to demonstrate that different landuses can be compatible when a little design thinking is applied, North

Wollongong’s 1300 square metre community garden occupies the corner of a sporting field, extending part way along one side and along one end to form an L-shape. The open lawn of the field creates a vivid contrast to the multistoried structure of the community garden’s food forest.

“This is ‘black’ soil”, explains one of the garden’s instigators, Aaron Sorensen. Trained as a school teacher but by vocation a social entrepreneur, Aaron teamed with local landscape architect and permaculture designer, Dan Deighton, in Care Design, a small business yielding far more of social value than everyday businesses provide. It’s also a business with a large program — Dan and Aaron are busy with school educational gardens in four local primary schools and, as if that were not enough, they have created an edible landscape along the lane and streets around where Dan lives.

Aaron stoops to pick up a handful of the fine grained, dark soil. “It’s alluvial”, he tells visiting New Zealand permaculture educator and community worker, Robina McCurdy, and me.

“It eroded from sandstone”. It is in this stuff that North Wollongong’s only forest garden thrives.

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The garden has a core group of around ten but a larger group who attend less often.

Working bees can attract over 60. This is a common pattern in community gardens, especially those of the shared gardening model — there are no allotments in North Wollongong Community Garden.

From the field, it appears as a solid mass of trees with a comfrey border decisively marking the edge, where the sporting field’s lawn meets the forest garden. The thickly growing comfrey forms an effective weed barrier for the garden.

Walking by the 9000 litre plastic tank that stores rainwater falling on the roof of the adjacent building, we enter the narrow, winding track. In here it is shaded, the trees above and shrubs beside the track creating a markedly different microclimate to that outside. It is darker, cooler and sheltered and we talk quietly as you do in such environments.

Something reminds me of Robert Hart’s forest garden in the UK, the work of an inspiring man who influenced many with his innovative ideas (www.spiralseed.co.uk/forestgarden/), which were described in his classic book, The Forest Garden (1996; Chelsea Green, UK).

www.communitygarden.org.au

Above us only trees Above us, only tree canopy and the pale blue sky of Autumn. This is no ordinary canopy, of course — these trees produce fruit and nuts surprising for their number and variety in so small an area. This whole garden is surprising and it reminds me of the traditional home gardens with their diversity of tree, shrub and vegetable found in rural areas in the developing world of the tropics.

But there’s something strange about those trees. “We coppice the native trees in Autumn to about three metres, and use the foliage for mulch”, explains Aaron. “Coppicing lets in more light over the winter months and provided organic matter and nutrients to the other plants”.

There are trees grown especially for coppicing, such as the leguminous acacias that provide nitrogen to the garden, one of the macronutrients needed for plants to grow healthy and productive.

Clumping bamboo and bananas are just a couple of the many species in the forest garden. Bamboo can be cut for structural material of use in the garden. The seat provides a sheltered resting place behind the mosaic art work in the path.

It’s this mix of natives and exotics that make use of the natural functions and yields of the trees and shrubs to provide food and amenity for people, and habitat for birds and terrestrial wildlife.

“This is the type of mixed vegetation we need in urban areas”, I suggest, “ ...a blend of the native and exotic that provide multiple benefit to life of all kinds, including people”.

This is garden-as-ecosystem and it is more beneficial than gardens of ornamental exotics or those of native plants only.

Imagine this long, narrow forest garden. On the ground grow those earth-hugging plants that form little bunches, or grow as taller bushes, or that twist and twine across the soil.

Above them is a layer of shrubs ranging in size from the metre or so of the sweet-scented pineapple sage that grows in a keyhole bed where more light gets into the forest garden, to the two to three metre height of the Coffee arabica with its dark, glossy leaves and bright green, unripe beans. Above, the canopy of fruit, nut, native and mulch trees.

A Coffee arabica with immature coffee beans. The beans turn red when ripe.

Robina checks out the prolific comfrey in a vegetable bed.

Note the explanatory sign indicating uses for the plant.

Thanks to the effort of schoolchildren and the generosity of Wollongong Council in making a $1500 grant to the garden, artful signs tell you about the plants you look at and their role in the garden ecology. We stop frequently to listen to Aaron as he tells us about some particular www.communitygarden.org.au

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plant, such as the large-leafed and uncommon PNG passionfruit climbing up the fence, or the stiff foliage of the jaboticaba of South American province that yields a succulent, white-fleshed fruit. He explains the ecological design of the garden, too, a prime example of applied permaculture thinking. At the end of the forest path we come to an open, sunny area behind which is a building and a chook run.

Here, the chooks have a large scratch yard and a two and a half metre wide fenced strip along the fence along which they can range to forage within the shelter of the edible forest. A salvaged child’s cubby house, bright red, serves as spaceous accommodation. Well aware of the need to harvest, store and carefully use water, the gardeners have attached guttering to the edge of the chook house roof that takes rainwater to a large olive barrel.

Adjacent to the vegetable garden is low shrubbery in which ponds are partially hidden to provide water and refuge to wildlife and to add to the garden’s already plentiful ecological and habitat values. Nearby, a shelter structure is under construction and there’s a bathtub made into a large worm farm for the production of vermicompost — worm compost.

Much to inspire, inform, discover North Wollongong Community Garden is (top left) Aaron explains one of the art works that dot the community garden.

not your average garden. It is managed

(top right) Aaron lifts the lid on a liquid compost. Used olive barrels make cheap and effective liquid compost and rainwater storage containers.

using organic methods and easy-to-make

(above) An old children’s cubby is now the community garden’s commodious chook house.

permaculture design system are much in

(left) Comfrey edge and coppiced native trees. (below) Garden signage is educational and informative.

no-dig garden beds. Ideas derived from the evidence — it’s not surprising that Aaron and Dan hold qualifications in permaculture design.

“We have had up to 300 school visitors in a day”, says Aaron, “ ...and we have hosted Greencorp programs. The garden has an educational value to the local area’s schools as well as to the wider community”.

With Aaron’s explanations to Robina’s many questions, it’s taken us more than an hour to explore the community garden. It’s a surprising find among the modest suburban houses of the suburb, and a delightful one too.

This, we realise, is the way to bring food production back to the city and create muchneeded habitat at the same time, this small, dense and productive vegetative paradise. ...Russ Grayson

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www.communitygarden.org.au

Sydney community gardeners...

Big day out

T

he night’s rain departed and Sydney region community gardeners had a mild, late Autumn day at Randwick Organic

Community Garden (ROCG) for their annual confab.

Around 70 attended for workshops, to share news of their community garden, meet colleagues and to learn from each other.

Community gardeners from the region, a consultant evaluating local government sustainability programs, some local government staffers, permaculture practitioners and the plain curious were fuelled by the tasty food produced by the Randwick community gardeners. Organised by Arts in the Garden maven, the exuberant and colourful Maery O’Connell, the event lasted until the sun sank low in the western sky.

ROCG was its sparkling, productive best for the occasion and the four Isa-Brown chickens in residence were surely amazed to encounter so many humans on the one day.

Progress is being made Formed into a circle, participants brought news of their gardens and other initiatives: • ROCG spokeswoman, the landscape designer, horticulturist and educator, Emma Daniel said that, now nearly three years on site, all allotments are claimed and garden, its gardeners and chooks are flourishing • Matt Heffernan, a home gardener and member of Permaculture Sydney South, told of how Kogarah Municipal Council is to convert a disused bowling green into a community garden • Rob Joyner brought news of the support received from Woollahra Council and local residents for the Paddington Community Garden; he and partner Vicki said the garden should make a start by Spring this year

of members from the outside community but includes a number of university staff and students • Glovers Community Garden in the Inner West — Sydney’s oldest, started in 1986 — has adopted the biodynamic method of compost production and has constructed a total of ten allotments; the garden had previously been a shared gardening site without individual plots; the allotments has strengthened the garden; all gardeners participate in maintenance of shared garden areas and there is a beekeeper — honey is produced in the community garden — as well as 12 chooks and a rooster

Stragglers enjoy a social moment in the garden after the gettogether

• a spokesman for the proposed Clovelly Community Garden in the oceanside Eastern Suburbs explained their progress to date and said that they have communicated with the landholder of the proposed site, the Water Board; Randwick City Council has assisted with meeting space and the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network’s Fiona Campbell and Russ Grayson ran a two-session strategic planning program for the would-be gardeners, as they did for the proposed Manly gardeners, this is a service provided by the NSW branch of the Network • four from the Willoughby Community Garden crew attended to explain that their present site on Willoughby Council land was temporary and that they are to start looking for a permanent site; the community gardeners operate as council volunteers • news came from Young Earth Community Garden in the western suburbs; the garden was started for the local community centre in the late 1990s by Sydney permaculture design course graduate, Alicia Bourner.

• Gardeners agreed that garden representatives would meet more regularly to liaise and plan.

• there was news of the Macquarie University Community Garden which consists mainly www.communitygarden.org.au

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New policy enables community gardening A policy directions document developed for Marrickville Council by the editor of Community Harvest will enable the expansion of community gardening in the municipality...

IT WAS A SURPRISE TO BE ASKED TO PRODUCE a policy directions document for Council and it was reassuring when Council accepted it in late 2007.

Local government staff at a number of Sydney councils, community gardeners, arts in community gardens practitioners, researchers and sustainability educators — both within and outside local government — were consulted in obtaining information for the report.

A clear, open and fair procedure It became clear during the research phase of the project that there was a need for local government to adopt a structured, clear, predictable, open, negotiable and fair community garden application process. This was a view expressed by both community gardeners and local government staff.

Respondents said that such an application process would be preferable to the present adhoc, one-off approach of local government in NSW. This leaves the fate of community gardens up to the personal predilection and biases of individual council staff or councillors, and raises issues of fairness and openess in their dealing with community garden groups. Consequently, an application process was outlined in the policy directions document.

Gardens of many models

In Sydney, these include: • gardens managed by community groups on local government, church, school and community centre land • a council managed community garden based on the UK allotment model • council managed gardens in which the gardeners are regarded as council volunteers.

NSW Department of Housing gardens were not covered in detail as those gardens were developed for a particular community of gardeners only — people living in public housing.

Opinion suggested that council managed community gardens might not allow the development of the social capital values of cooperation, shared responsibility and decision making that community managed gardens engender. Major decisions, such as those about design, management and membership dues, remain with council. Gardeners have less influence.

Management presents challenges The council managed garden operated by Waverley Council was controversially taken from a community-based gardening group when Council decided not to renew their lease

Discussions with participants during the

(assisted by neighbouring Woollahra Council,

research phase disclosed a number of

the dispossessed Eastern Suburbs Community

approaches to community gardening.

Garden team now has a new garden).

The garden has since been razed and rebuilt by council at considerable expense. A council officer confirmed that gardeners have little input into management. Interestingly, Waverley licences, rather than leases, allotments, however the annual renewal period may be too

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www.communitygarden.org.au

short a time for gardeners to have a sense of security about their tenure.

Willoughby Council, on Sydney’s Lower North shore, takes a different approach to its Council managed community garden.

The garden was resumed by council after the community dispiritedly abandoned it some years ago when Council announced the sale of the public open space occupied by the garden. The sale is yet to happen, however Council plans to retain a community garden somewhere.

As a council managed community garden, gardeners are regarded as council volunteers in the same manner as bush regeneration volunteers. For insurance purposes, they sign in each day they garden and have little formal say in the management of the garden.

The gardener experience with the sale of the land is an example of how local government decisions can discourage communities from civic engagement.

Sustainability education and multiple use The policy directions document proposes that councils negotiate with community gardeners, access by council’s sustainability education

It was also suggested that the gardens, where space and other considerations allow, be made available for compatible, non-gardening uses, such as that of the Arts in the Garden team which use community gardens as performance venues, or for visits by people in aged care or schools.

A few modest proposals The policy directions document recommended that councils: • adopt a policy proposing support for community gardens • not set up its own community garden but wait for demand to come from the community • adopt the community self-management model of community gardening • adopt a procedure for accepting and processing applications for support from community garden groups • develop a lease agreement that guarantees security of tenure for the garden with automatic renewal, providing both parties have adhered to any agreements regarding land use • development of a memorandum of understanding between council and gardeners to create some expectation in regard to what the community garden will be used for

officers for workshops and courses open to the

• council make use of the community garden for sustainability education and the display pioneered by a number of community gardens and of sustainability technologies, processes and ideas. city farms in sustainability education and seeks public. This recognises the valuable role already

to establish community gardens, where there is interest, as sustainability education centres.

www.communitygarden.org.au

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

13

Policy directions for community gardening

Effective community gardening Participant’s ideas on what makes effective community gardening...

Responses included: • good communications

A council sustainability educator listed as the main contributors to effectiveness:

• stakeholder participation in decision making

• strong leadership in the garden

• having good process

• gardeners who know what they are doing

• flexibility

• good design

• providing training to new gardeners

• gardening knowledge.

• willingness to compromise

A council waste education coordinator and community garden liaison cited the example of Wooloomooloo Community Garden in Sydney Place as an example of garden effectiveness. The City of Sydney designed and constructed the garden to replace an earlier, small community garden sited adjacent to the Eastern Suburbs rail viaduct, and continues to provide support.

• adopting roles for participants — gardeners sometimes find that they like doing a particular activity and making it possible for them to do this is helpful to the functioning of the garden.

A one-time participant in the now-disbanded UNSW Permaculture Community Garden, now with the Randwick Community Organic Garden, stressed the importance of the community garden’s constitution as contributing to the effective management of the enterprise.

Factors observed that contribute to effectiveness include: • the importance of competent organisation

“It is important to the resolution of disputes and how things get done”, she said

• democratic and participatory group structure

Structure is important to Glovers Community Garden in Rozelle. The community garden’s largely shared structure (they are only now starting allotments) was cited as the means of maintaining the effectiveness of the garden as people come and go.

• the ability to deal with issues through an informal conflict resolution process

A member of the new community garden group in Manly local government area listed as components of effectiveness:

• commitment

• having a management plan for the garden.

A North Shore local government Bushcare officer, responsible for a community garden, listed as critical to effectiveness: • democratic process • allowing gardeners to be heard

• democratic process

• giving them the freedom to try things

• a focus on the social aspects of the garden

• learning by the gardeners

• a regular commitment by members

• the development of interpersonal relationships

• good garden aesthetics.

• sharing of a common space • the feeling of being supported.

The value of policy

I

n the late 1990s, prior to amalgamation with City of Sydney, South Sydney Council produced what was probably Australia’s first local government policy on food security, What’s Eating South Sydney.

The policy promised council support for food cooperatives, sources of fresh food and community gardens. It was due to the policy that council cooperated with Department of Housing and UNSW School of the Built Environment in the development of the Waterloo Estate community gardens.

Much of that expertise — first developed by community worker and council waste coordinator, Rhonda Hunt, and then by Micheal Neville, now City of Sydney Waste Education Coordinator — travelled with Michael to the City upon amalgamation.

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SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

www.communitygarden.org.au

Calendar team seeks support

S

ome of us have to think a little to work out what date it is... or even what month it is. Sure, we know approximately, but

there’s nothing like knowing for sure.

Now, a project by a team of avid community gardeners just might fix our confusion.

Maery O’Connell writes...

“We are seeking sponsorship for the production of a Sydney community garden calendar for 2009.

“The A4-size calendar will feature beautiful photos of many of Sydney’s community gardens.

There will also be monthly planting guides for Sydney’s climate, organic veggie recipes and inspiring text. Each month will feature one garden, with details of its address and contact details.

“The aim of the calendar is to build our own interconnections and to raise the profile of community gardens in the wider community, in so doing inspiring and mentoring the creation of many more gardens in the city and the region.

“Sponsors will be gratefully acknowledged on the outside back cover of the calendar, or you may choose to sponsor a particular month for $500 or more. Your name and logo will acknowledge your valued contribution and will be viewable for that entire month.

“If you would like to sponsor the calendar, pre-order calendars (rrp $10, special price to gardens of $5) or simply require more information, please contact Mary O’Connell from Randwick Community Organic Garden at m.oconnell@unsw.edu.au”.

bi

ut I, being poor, have only my dreams: have spread my dreams under your feet;

t

read softly because you tread on my dreams.

Vehicle innovator becomes garden innovator In Sydney’s southern Suburbs an innovative garden designer has got together with an innovative vehicle manufacturer to make an edible garden Matt Heffernan writes...

“My name is Matt Heffernan and I have completed a PDC (Permaculture Design Course).

“I have just finished a food garden at Toyota’s head office. This is at Taren Point, near Cronulla in Sydney’s Southern Suburbs. The business sits is on about five acres (about two hectares) of a reclaimed tip, previously mangrove swamp I expect, that now has very impressive ornamental gardens created by the landscaping company.

“I submitted a proposal for a food garden next to their cafeteria, which they accepted.

“There is about 35sq m of culinary herbs, citrus, figs and some annuals. The kitchen staff are using and enjoying the garden.

“This summer, I hope to fill spaces and trees with travelling curcubits to impress even the most stifled executive. If all goes well, ultimately, the garden will provide all fruit and veges for their cafeteria.

“Toyota believes the food garden fits in well with their long term objective, which is to create zero waste from their entire business process — eg biodegradable dashboards, recyclable panels.

“They are trialing a biodigester using their kitchen waste. Wastes are collected in a digester via the kitchen, removed by truck and used to generate clean energy through methane. So, as a motor car company, they are aware of where things are headed.

“I also contract to Optus, which has a huge green space that has me thinking”.

Kind regards, Matt Heffernan, Garden Feast

...WB Yeats (1865-1939)

www.communitygarden.org.au

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

15

australian city far ms & community gardens network

What’s news...

CERES goes local at farmers’ market To highlight the city’s local food system, CERES community farm has joined the Melbourne Community Farmers’ Markets (www.mfm.com. au) as a regular stallholder at the minimumwaste, Slow Food market at Abbotsford Convent.

The market has a policy of no plastic bags and of supporting Melbourne region food producers.

Access to fresh food boosted by funding The 16 February edition of the Illawarra Mercury carried a page one, lead story entitled “Illawarra leaders’ plan to help us eat our greens”.

The prominently-placed story, by reporter Courtney Trenwith, announced the cooperation of three local governments to design and implement a food security plan using a federal government grant of $1.15 million.

Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama councils are behind the three year project. It follows disclosure in a study that 19,000 citizens of the region do not have adequate access to fresh fruit and vegetables.

Wollongong Council’s Lisa Miller told the Illawarra Mercury that food production in the Illawarra had diminished over the past 30 years.

The project will include the edible landscaping of streets, community gardening, an existing program of educational gardens in schools and access to affordable food.

The announcement was associated with a seminar on food security at the University of Wollongong, attended by local government, churches, local health services and community groups including the Illawarra Food Fairness Alliance (www.healthycitiesill.org.au/ foodfairness.htm), with which some local government officers also work.

Speaking at the conference, the University of Sydney’s professor Tony Capon said it was important that developers and councils consider

16

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

access to fresh food in their planning of towns and cities. Professor Heather Yates from the University of Wollongong said councils often do not understand their influence on food security.

Kiama Mayor, Sandra McCarthy, said her council took food security seriously and is looking at how dairy farms might also grow fresh foods.

The project aims to boost the availability of fresh foods in the Illawarra through establishing more growers markets and a food trail to encourage farmers to sell what they produce locally. A food strategy is to be implemented that includes food gardens in schools and community gardens.

Rumour to contrary untrue:

Organics can feed the world The Ecologist magazine on 17/07/2007 published a report — Organic farming CAN feed the world, saying that...

“A new study by scientists at the University of Michigan in the US suggests that on farms in industrialised countries, organic farming can produce comparable yields to those achieved by conventional farming.

“In the less-industrialised world, however, the study showed that up to three times greater yields can be obtained by farming organically.

These results were achieved using existing quantities of organic fertilisers — such as manure and green manure — and without turning more land over to food production.

“Professor Ivette Perfecto, lead author of the research, said she was struck by the yields which could be obtained from organic farming, and how these could be obtained by simple methods such as growing nitrogen-fixing crops in-between harvest and sowing times. She added that assuming the world would go hungry if forced to farm organically was ‘ridiculous’”.

www.communitygarden.org.au

australian city far ms & community gardens network

When in Brisbane...

Northey Street City Farm Organic Growers’ Market Sundays...

6:00 am — 10:30 am • all the old favourite stalls • extra new stalls • hot coffee, chai, breakfast, treats at the City Farm’s Chai Cafe • City Farm’s Edible Landscapes nursery • lots of bike racks & parking • certified organic produce & products • walk around the City Farm... fruit, vegetables, chooks, market garden, water tanks, unusual crops... visit Breakfast Creek’ mangroves... there’s lots of inspiration for you and your children.

Find us at NORTHEY STREET, Windsor... coming from the city along Lutwyche Road, cross Breakfast Creek bridge and turn next left into Northey Street.

In Sydney’s urban west

T

he Holroyd Community Garden is located at 73 Fullagar Road, in Wentworthville (western Sydney), as part of Lytton Street Park. It is a little difficult to find as it is actually behind the tennis courts and Lapidary Club, so to gain access people need to walk down along side the canal and then they will not miss it.

The garden is on land owned by the Holroyd Council but has been given over to the Cassia Community Centre to develop and administer. It has been in existence since 2003 but it is only since June that progress has been made and the garden has got off the ground. In terms of a lot of community gardens, the area is quite large, spanning 1600 sq meters.

We have established a native garden area with plants donated by some of the large wholesale nurseries in Sydney and have now moved on to establishing the vegetable plots. There are also plans for a formal orchard nursery, raised vegetable plots to accommodate disabled people and a pergola in which we intend to conduct workshops.

The long-term vision for the garden is to have it open at least twice a week for local community groups, the local school and disabled groups in the area.

Contact details are: Cassia Community Centre.

P: 9688 3215 or 0425 306003 Lynne McLaughlan, Community Garden Coordinator.

www.communitygarden.org.au

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

17

AOTEROA/NEW ZEALAND

NEW GARDENS for Aotearoa’s cities WELLINGTON, CHRISTCHURCH, AUCKLAND, NELSON... community gardening has come to New Zealand’s cities.

T

aking the lead, Auckland City Council has developed a policy that facilitates the practice of community gardening.

In Wellington, links between city government and community gardeners are opening up, with a city councillor lending her assistance to a community garden group.

Cultivating Christchurch The South Island’s major city, Christchurch, has at around 14 community gardens.

Strickland Street Community Garden sees its civic role encompassing neighbourhood development and sustainable living, and promotes itself as providing fresh produce at low/no cost to the community, a friendly environment in which to share and learn gardening skills, workshops on composting, food preserving, seed saving and horticulture and activities for school groups.

Here, Robina makes use of the participatory techniques she has developed over the years, her skills in working with groups and experience in food production.

Time for trans-Tasman cooperation We hear all too little about our community gardening colleagues across the Tasman, yet there surely is much to learn from each other.

Here’s to a closer relationship and free flow of information.

More information: Strickland Street Community Garden: ssgardens@paradise.net Common Ground story next page...

Gardening Wellington Wellington has three community gardens, one of which is Common Ground, described on the next page.

Others include Arlington Community Garden, which occupies local government land. Te Aro locals associated with the group known as Growing Community salvaged plants from a garden built to protest the construction of a road bypass and used them to create the Arlington garden. Innermost Gardens is planned to be an intercultural place for local and migrant women.

Communication yields common direction. In Common Ground Community Garden, a sign protected from the rain communicates the garden’s needs to gardeners.

Making a start in Nelson In Nelson, at the top of the South Island on Cook Strait, permaculture educator, organics advocate and international development worker, Robina McCurdy, coordinated a new

Common Ground gardeners salvaged used roofing iron to make this practical, weatherproof storage shed. With its multi-colour panels, it looks like an artwork.

community garden.

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SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

www.communitygarden.org.au

AOTEROA/NEW ZEALAND

Community gardening in wild, windy Wellington IF THERE’S ONE THING YOU NOTICE about Common Ground Community Garden, it’s the windbreaks. They’re there for a good reason — the winds pour down the gorse-covered slopes above to roar through the garden on their way to the valley below.

A

garden of allotments and common areas, Common Ground occupies the same midslope plateau as the Sisters of

Compassion food garden. And the gardeners have the Sisters to thank for Common Ground, for it was they who said ‘yes’ when the

Rowan, Common Ground’s coordinator.

community garden group approached them for access to an area of their land.

Like so many other community gardens, the Common Ground gardeners use organic techniques to maintain a productive soil and grow their crops. Compost production is carried out in the big bays the gardeners have made of recycled timber. Mulching is much in evidence.

Walk through the garden and notice how the gardener-recyclers have put together a rustic garden shed from panels of salvaged galvanised iron, how they make use of vehicle tyres for planters, and notice, too, the sheltered blackboard that notifies gardeners of what needs doing. To minimise maintenance, the garden beds have durable edges that deter weed invasion, and some of the paths have been made more durable by the laying of bark chips.

There is plenty of evidence that the gardeners have put time into site analysis. All those barriers of blue shadecloth are to protect the vegetables and herbs from Wellington’s wild winds. Perhaps the most elaborate windbreak is that made of polycarbonate roofing panels that surrounds one of the allotments.

Allotments with shadecloth windbreaks and, in the background, the shed made by the gardeners.

It’s really windy at Common Ground, and strong winds damage vegetables and herbs. A polycarbonate windbreak erected to keep the winds from an allotment. Note the allotment’s sturdy timber wall.

Tall shrubs, too, form windbreaks. The gardeners have found the legume, pigeon pea (Cajanus cajan) to be useful for this purpose.

Common Ground is a productive community garden designed to brave the challenges of its hilly terrain and cool temperate climate... and Wellington’s wild winds. www.communitygarden.org.au

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

19

AOTEROA/NEW ZEALAND

Supporting community gardening with CITY POLICY

I

t seems they like the idea of urban agriculture in Auckland, New Zealand’s largest city up near the top of the North

Island. There, city government has adopted a policy on community gardening.

In its policy, Auckland City Council states…

Community gardens involve residents in sharing in the creation, maintenance and rewards of gardening. They provide food, recreation and therapeutic opportunities for a community. They can also promote environmental awareness and provide community education.

Where they exist, community gardens form an important part of a city’s public open space network. Today, there are approximately 10,000 community gardens in United States cities alone. At least 15 community gardens are known to exist in New Zealand.

Auckland city defines a community garden as: …a small scale, low-investment neighbourhood communal gardening venture, growing vegetables, fruit and/ or flowers.

It uses vacant or unspecified open space — either in the public domain or owned by another organisation or business (for example by a church or through a public housing body).

Community gardens may have an explicit gardening philosophy such as organic growing, permaculture or biodynamic gardening, or they may allow participants with individual plots to manage them as they see fit. They may also establish nurseries to propagate and raise seedlings for their gardeners.

Positive move for city government As far as is known, Auckland is the only city government in Aoteoroa to adopt a policy specifically on community gardening. As have policies elsewhere, it provides an official framework for the development of communitybased, urban food production.

Gardens thrive in other cities too — Wellington, Christchurch, Nelson — and no doubt will continue to increase in number. It seems our trans-Tasman colleagues have made a positive start to bringing food production back to the city.

gardening offers a way around the alienation and isolation of contemporary life.

COMMUNITY GARDENING is a book of documentary style photographs that capture the people who work Christchurch’s community gardens as well as the gardens themselves.

Published by the Christchurch Community Garden’s Association, the black and white images in the 38 page book were made for the Community Gardening exhibition that toured the city’s community venues and public libraries in 2006.

The book displays the work of photographer, Stephen Trindler. In their accompanying text, Christine Blance (who manages the Strickland Street Community Garden) and Ross Paterson write that community

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SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

“The gardens lay down a set of values that people seem to need”, writes Christine. “It’s to do with authenticity, a demonstration of hard work and the value of work, creating a good relationship with neighbours... (the gardens) give a sense of security”.

The writers explain how community gardens were established throughout the city in the 1980s, mainly as “spontaneous localised actions” to satisfy social needs. Another motivation was to provide access to healthy and affordable food. More gardens have been started in recent years, bringing the total in Christchurch to 14. Documentary photography, as in this book, is a genre with the potential to write community gardening into the historic record of our cities. We need more of it.

Community Gardening; 2006; Christchurch Community Gardens’ Association. ISBN 0 473 10909 3. www.communitygarden.org.au

AOTEROA/NEW ZEALAND

Following the FOOD TRAILS

O

N SYDNEY’s URBAN FRINGE, we have the Hawkesbury Harvest Farm Gate Trail. On New Zealand’s North Island

they have the Hawkes Bay Food Trail. Two sides of the Tasman, two good ideas for local food producers and local food aficionados.

The food trail is an idea that links food producers, processors and retailers in a driveyourself route through a food producing area.

For visitors, its the opportunity to buy food products they otherwise might not get to taste, to have a pleasant day’s drive in the country (fill your car with friends) and the chance to sample local foods and wines.

On the edge of Sydney

Sydney gardener, Matthew McLennan and local organic gardener, Sister Loyala (Sisters of Compassion, Wellington) discuss things horticultural while leaning on a Common Ground Community Garden windbreak

Hawkesbury Harvest’s trail takes you to a wide range of venues on the Sydney rural fringe.

These span the Mt Tomah Botanic Gardens, through arts and crafts premises, a cheesery, seafood smoker, fruit and vegetable farms, an alpaca stud, winery, berry farm, pecan orchard and lavender farm, among many.

Over the Tasman Over on the Pacific coast of New Zealand’s North Island, the Hawkes Bay Food Trail visits a diverse range of food venues.

There’s avocados, fruit orchards, Elmwood Table Grapes, a strawberry farm, mushroom farm and the free range Other Side Chook Park.

There’s honey, a rustic food store, an organic coffee company, Harald’s Bread World, Roosters Brew World (beer, and their own local wines), Saucy Sisters artisan kitchen, cheeses, olives, chocolates, venison, Pataka Organic Cafe and Bakery and, of course, wineries — Hawkes Bay is New Zealand’s North Island wine country.

Idea...

Not enough space for a community garden? Why not grow it vertically?

Vertical garden by Terry Bail, Archology.

Information Hawkes Bay Food Trail: www.savourhawkesbay.co.nz Hawkesbury food Trail: www.hawkesburyharvest.com.au

www.communitygarden.org.au

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

21

2007: a

BIG

year for

CC

The year 2007 was a big one for Melbourne’s Cultivating Community, the Victorian end of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network. President Pam Varcy outlines the accomplishments...

C

ultivating Community (CC) has

Expanding educational role

completed an extremely productive

Our schools consultancy project received a

year and has grown substantially as an

organisation over the last twelve months. Much of this growth has come about because CC has diversified its role to include: • consultancy for school gardens • urban food co-ops • neighbourhood renewal projects • and our ongoing commitment to supporting community gardens.

CC has also become more actively involved with educational programs.

This growth has been reflected in an increase in employed staff and a major growth in funding from a diversity of sources.

CC is now in a strong position financially and is well respected for delivering high quality outcomes to projects. Not only is CC now recognised nationally as a strong voice for community development, it is also becoming better known internationally.

Innovative Projects CC’s biggest project of the last twelve months has been the very successful staging of the fourth annual Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Conference entitled Cities Feeding People – grow it where you live (download audio: http://www.ceres.org.au/ community/conference.htm).

This involved many months of planning and hard work. Well-known national and international speakers were featured as well as workshops on topics such as local food and food security, gardens in schools, community gardens and seed saving. Tours, networking and social events capped off a very exciting conference with over 700 participants.

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SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

great boost when it was awarded a grant from Department of Victorian Communities, together with SMEC financial and in-kind support, nearly $60,000.

Following this, our school garden consultancy business model is now being trailed at three schools. It is predicted that this work will become a growth area for the organisation. CC continues to have garden support workers and teachers in several schools.

School gardens — going solo In March, the time came to break away from our collaboration with the Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation to pursue our own visions for the establishment and support of school garden programs.

This means that CC is no longer involved with the programs at Collingwood College and Nunawading Primary School. Heidi and Andrew have both made excellent contributions to these projects and our thanks must go to both of them for the wonderful work they have done.

Moving into education This year has seen CC involved in the presentation of two courses at the Burnley campus of Melbourne University.

The Community and Therapeutic Horticulture course was a success for the third successive year, this time with twenty six participants.

The second course was a new Kitchen Garden course that attracted forty-four participants.

www.communitygarden.org.au

Future Directions CC can look toward a very strong and exciting next twelve months. More and more, people are turning towards sustainable living and CC is there at the cutting edge to give support and direction: • of particular note is our newly-forged association with Royal Botanic Gardens;

this will hopefully open doorways for both organisations • our schools garden program is growing rapidly and new funding in the area of food security is allowing for some exciting developments.

Download the full Cultivating Community Annual Report 2007 from: www.communitygarden.org.au

Community gardens in public housing CC continues to support and maintain twenty community gardens on public housing states: • social events such as outings, barbeques and arts projects provide positive experiences for the gardeners • the wood-fired oven in the Fitzroy Community Garden is getting lots of use • in September, Flemington Estate Community Garden celebrated its first birthday; this has really been a wonderful success story after all the delays in its redevelopment • this year, CC opened a community garden to the public through Australia’s Open Garden Scheme; it was Flemington’s turn and highlights over the weekend included cultural dancing and singing, the availability of a variety of food and drinks and garden tours led by Penny Woodward; the

very colourful scarecrows made by individual gardeners and the life-size photos of many of the gardeners added a festive feel to the garden; congratulations must go to Ailsa, Esther and the other volunteers • once again, Housing Week was celebrated in the various gardens with many different activities • this last twelve month period has seen a major challenge for gardeners with the drought and severe water restrictions being imposed; many of the gardeners have struggled with watering their plots by carting buckets of recycled water from their flats; Yarra Valley Water and City West Water granted CC exemptions to allow a change of watering times in many of the gardens • after much consultation and collaboration, a new set of Garden Rules and Guidelines has been developed and ratified by DHS providing stability across all gardens.

Farewell Garden of Eden It was with great sadness that Garden of Eden Inc was disbanded.

CC had an excellent relationship with this organisation and we are very grateful to them for their donation of two laptop computers and one PC, plus a donation of nearly $6000.

This paves the way for CC to become directly responsible for the planning and construction of garden upgrades.

Thanks to the work of Amadis Lacheta and crew for making Garden of Eden a memorable place.

www.communitygarden.org.au

Photo: The community garden network and SEED International’s Morag Gamble (www.SEEDinternational.com.au) takes a long, last walk down the path at Garden of Eden

SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

23

Cultivating Community’s innovative fresh food markets

Fresh food markets for public housing communities

C

ultivating Community’s Fresh Food Markets are tenant run, not-forprofit initiatives that aim to increase

access to fresh, in season and affordable

produce for the tenants of the Fitzroy and Collingwood public housing estates as well as wider communities addressing issues of food insecurity and social isolation.

some produce is sourced directly from a farmer in the Southern Grampians The project aims to assist information exchange and to be a training ground for tenants, a place where they can build skills in everything from English expression to retail, business to community development. The project also aims to break down some of the barriers between the wider community and public housing communities. The market has volunteers from cultural groups including Vietnamese, Chinese, Pakistani, Greek and Sudanese.

How it works Food for the markets is purchased at the Footscray Wholesale Market by the buyer who shops for the CERES Market in East Brunswick.

This in-kind contribution is invaluable.

Although the aim of the project is to supply the cheapest produce possible, an emphasis is also placed on quality and sustainability, so the food is bought when it is in season and with an as-local-as-possible ethic.

Some produce is sourced directly from a farmer in the Southern Grampians who heard about the project and wanted to be involved.

Other produce is grown for the markets at the Richmond Fellowship’s Sprout Supported Community Garden project in Thornbury.

The produce is then dropped off at the estate where tenant volunteers set up the shop.

Each volunteer takes home a $10 box of produce to reward their efforts.

Why a market?

The idea for this project follows the identification of food security as a major issue in the Collingwood and Fitzroy public housing communities, with many tenants in the most vulnerable food insecurity categories. In the Collingwood and Fitzroy areas, there is only one local supermarket where produce is often

Our food leaves little to waste...

Manly Food coop specialises in good food, minimally packaged. Organic, fresh foods... vegetables... fruit... herbs.

Find us not far from the surf at 21 Whistler Street, Manly.

expensive and of poor quality.

The project has been running since 2004, initially supported by the Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Fitzroy Office of Housing.

Funding ran out in December 2005 and the project is currently being run solely by volunteers.

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SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

Sydney’s low-waste food source

www.communitygarden.org.au

The Rainbow Region Community Farms crew

Food localisation now on the community sector agenda Up Lismore way, where the days are long and hot, where weeds grow like trees and the cane toads grow to the size of cats, there’s an enthusiastic bunch of people planning the city’s first community garden.

I had the good fortune to meet this creative bunch and to enjoy a meal with them while visiting the town as a speaker in a relocalisation of food conference.

First off, though, was participation on a panel three days before the Feeding Our Future conference. That was in a town just 30 downhill kilometres from the Lismore metropolis.

There, the editor of Kindred magazine (www.kindredmagazine.com.au) Kali Wendorf — Kindred is a parenting magazine with a heavy emphasis on sustainability (they published an article on community gardening in their MarchMay 2008 issue) — and Ken McLeod, then with the Ethos Foundation, had invited me to join Brisbane Food Connects’ (www.foodconnect. com.au) Robert Pekin, a former organic farmer, and the manager of Byron Farmers’ Market www.communitygarden.org.au

(http://byronfarmersmarket.com.au) — who is also an organic farmer — in a panel with Cuban urban agriculturist, Roberto Perez.

Australia’s most successful CSA Let me tell you about Food Connect.

The organisation is a model for the localisation of our food supply. It is the most successful CSA (community supported agriculture) project in Australia, numbering a large group of farmers and a very large number of city-based eaters as participants. The food it offers is largely organic. Food Connect sources its produce from within a five hour drive of Brisbane.

Robert just made it to the Byron Bay seminar, having hitched up from a Food Connect meeting in Yamba and waiting 275 cars for a lift. When he made it to the later Lismore conference, he accounted for the malibu crammed up against the front and rear windows of his car by spinning a tall and frankly unbelievable tale of how it was required at the meeting to serve SPRING 2008— Community HARVEST

25

local food systems go north

brings a refreshing coolness before climbing up to the small town of Clunes.

The road passes through this town of old weatherboard homes juxtaposed with more recent brick structures, past the sign on the outskirts advertising local coffee, and then its more or less a downward trend (in topography — not quality of town, countryside or residents) through diminutive Rosebank and onto the flats that speed you into Lismore.

Australia’s first Leigh Davidson is a middle aged man. He is softly spoken and astute of thought. Leigh is a wastewater expert and carries out his research at Southern Cross University (SCU), where he is employed.

The Feeding Our Future conference, probably Australia’s first conference to focus on the localisation of the food supply, was held at SCU, which was one of the sponsors. Other organisers were Tropo, the local organic as a table, their being none of those in Yamba. I think Robert was fibbing.

Local foods difficult to find After the Byron Bay seminar I met with Ken McLeod and Robert just up the highway in sunny and sane Brunswick Heads. There, we lunched at the Riverside Café in view of the town’s shallow but broad river.

At Riverside, the owners attempt to use as much locally produced food as possible. But finding that, they say, can be a challenge — sourcing locally grown is not all that easy. In part, that’s because the market for local food is only in its infancy and because there is no local foods logo or other means of eater assurance for what is claimed as local really is that.

farming agency, and Lismore City Council (who had actually brought me up to speak at the conference).

On arrival in town several days before, Council’s sustainability educator had talked me into doing radio interviews with ABC Local Radio and the town’s community owned broadcaster. She also told me that a week before they had a total of 80 registered for the conference. That had grown to 200 in the previous three days.

People arriving at the conference were greeted with free coffee grown within 30km of

The localisation road runs west The winding, asphalt two-way from Byron to Lismore twists around some wonderfully curvacaous bends just outside of Balgalow, then passes through an arch of tree canopies that Dr Leigh Davidson, conference organiser, organic grower, pioneering intentional community resident

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www.communitygarden.org.au

local food systems go north

Lismore as well as free passionfruit, similarly grown. All food on display at the stalls displayed food miles on little signs.

The Che Guevara of urban agriculture Roberto, who was first speaker up, is a young Cuban with good English and a clear speaking voice, his accent not so pronounced that it gets in the way of clarity. It is said that he is perhaps the only Cuban speaking English with an Australian accent, a pecularity attributable to the Australian PGAN (Permaculture Global Assistance Network) team that went to Havana in the 1990s to teach Cubans about urban agriculture and permaculture. Roberto was brought to Australia by permaculture educator, Robyn Francis’ Cuba-Australia Permaculture Exchange (www.permaculture.com.au).

Roberto is easy going and non-dogmatic. His curly black hair falls to his shoulders, enclosing a trimmed beard and plastic-rimmed glasses.

Could Roberto be — if it’s not stretching a likeness too far — the Che Geuvara of Cuba’s urban agricultural revolution?

Other speakers included Dr Leigh Davidson, Rebecca Lines-Kelly of NSW DPI (on the UK response to their recent food crisis), Alan Roberts of TROPO (who spoke on food miles and energy costs), David Roberts from TROPO (organic growing options), Jude Fanton from the Seed Savers Network (www.seedsavers.net) and myself (www.pacific-edge.info) speaking on the localisation of the food supply and community gardening’s role in its relocalisation.

Morag Gamble and Evan Raymond’s (www.SEEDinternational.com.au) new 15 minute video, Think Global, Eat Local (www.localfood.net.au) was screened. The video is designed as a conversation starter for discussions on food localisation and I think it works rather well.

A few words says it all... food that has taken the road less travelled

Soon to be growing in Lismore This was a busy few days in the north. The day after the conference included a meeting with the local community garden crew, Rainbow Region Community Farms Inc (http://rainbowregion. com.au/communityfarms/index.php).

They are an imaginative, capable bunch who have already operated a Work for the Dole gardening skills project.

Rest assured that Lismore, that flood-prone, sleepy town tucked into a valley inland of Byron Bay, is about to see a resurgence of communitybased food activity. The town already has an organic farmers’ market and a focus such as the proposed community garden can only add impetus to the food localisation scene in the far north. Let’s grow it and eat it. ...Russ Grayson

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...celebrating 25 years of school gardening at Adelaide’s Black forest primary HERE ARE SOME PICS from our school gardens 25th birthday celebration.

Malcolm Campbell judged the pumpkin competition (above) and we invited the volunteers who started the garden 25 years ago. They were really happy to see it still going strong.

I’ve got plans to extend the garden a little to make room for more fruit trees and chooks.

Cheers ...Kate Hubmayer Black Forest Primary School, Adelaide Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network state contact

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gardening our school grounds

The logistics of gardening with...

Junior primary children Kate Hubmayer teaches at Adelaide’s pioneering Black Forest Primary, where she makes use of the school’s long-established food garden as a teaching resource.

H

ow does one adult undertake a

for its body, a jacaranda pod beak, casuarina tail

gardening activity with a class of 25, five

and gumnut legs and eyes.

to seven year old children? The answer

Collages with leaves, flowers and seeds, potato printing, weaving with native grasses and leaf rubbings are other options.

is YOU DON’T! If you do, you’ll end up with squashed plants, lost seed, chaos and tears.

However, it is possible to have successful, fun and educational lessons when you divide a class into smaller groups, recruit adult helpers and rotate the groups through a number of different activities.

Planting — worth the trouble?

Young children tend to view ‘gardening’ as the act of planting a seed or a seedling, and this seems to be what they most want to do in the garden apart from playing with mud and looking for bugs.

The problem lies in the fact that the actual act of planting takes very little time at all, and one is left wondering if it was worth going to all the trouble of preparing the pots, seeds, soil, labels etc, when it is all over in a matter of moments. But of course planting is worthwhile, and the followup of watching the plant grow over time is probably even more important as the initial planting itself.

A noisy but fun activity is placing a piece of calico or cheesecloth over an autumn leaf and hitting it with a hammer until the coloured juice comes through, leaving a print of the leaf.

While nature crafts aren’t trendy at the moment — you’d be lucky to find one nature craft book in your local library, compared to the numerous books on beading or mosaics — there are still quite a few ideas around and with a bit of imagination you can dream up your own.

A third activity, which ideally ties in with whatever it was that was being planted, is a brief lesson, story or worksheet. We’ve been planting an area of local native vegetation, so the perfect story to accompany this activity was The Lorax by Dr Seuss (essential reading for every gardener and environmentalist).

Nature craft a solution So while one group of children is planting in the garden, what do the others do?

A nature craft works very well. Parent helpers are usually very happy to supervise such activities and many seem to gain as much pleasure from doing the crafts as the children.

Glue guns & seed pods Making creatures using glue guns and a variety of seed pods is a great activity (see over page).

A fantastic platypus can be made with a banksia

www.communitygarden.org.au

Soup’s on at Black Forest’s 25 celebration

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Garden art When pruning grapevines in winter, save some of the longer pieces and twist them into wreaths. Hang them to dry, then nearer Christmas time they can be turned into beautiful wreaths with the addition of gum nuts, small pinecones, dried leaves and a bright ribbon. A hot glue gun is perfect for sticking seedpods on easily and quickly.

All sorts of creatures can be made using seedpods, seeds, sticks and hot glue guns. A kangaroo can be created using a banksia cone, jacaranda pod, gum nut caps and wisteria seeds. Children love this activity. It’s a fun and creative way to teach them to recognise various seedpods and to remember their names.

Pressed flowers or leaves arranged on a piece of cardboard and then laminated make attractive bookmarks. The example (right) was made by primary school students using plants indigenous to their local area, so it tied in with a curriculum focus on preserving local biodiversity.

Terracotta pots make colourful totem poles when painted and threaded onto a metal stake. They can be taken apart and planted with a succulent at a later date.

Leaf prints can be made using paint or by placing a colourful leaf under some muslin fabric and hammering it all over so that the sap stains the fabric in the shape of the leaf. …Kate Hubmayer

Photos: Kate Hubmayer Black Forest primary school, Adelaide 30

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creative

cringila IN THE NSW ILLAWARRA, those clever folk from Care Design — Dan Deighton and Aaron Sorensen — have set up four educational food gardens in local schools. The Cringila primary garden is one of these, and it demonstrates the commonsence of good design for learning.

There, the garden ambassadors — students

The garden is small but it contributes some

trained to meet with visitors and explain the

food to the school cafeteria and provides a calm

garden, as well as teach younger students —

and productive environment for the children.

can tell you all about the design of the garden,

The garden packs many varieties — exotics and

name the plants and their uses and even tell you

natives — into its compact perimeter, creating

the regions in which the plants originated (their

an intriguing place where the children like to be.

centres of diversity).

Windbreak of Banna Grass Subtropical fruits & herbs grow in shelter of windbreak Taller plants at rear of garden allow do not block sunlight from lower-growing Open gathering area with bark mulch for students and visitors Lower-growing plants established on sunward side for access to light

(top of page) a sitting circle — a good idea in any school garden. (right) in vertical structure, the Cringila school garden is like the forest with ground layer, middle layer and canopy height plants.

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Leonie Shanahan reports on her innovative school program that brings fresh food and school gardens to the Sunshine Coast’s children

Let’s make food healthy Healthy children — luxury or myth?

What is happening to our food? Do you know?

Do you think about it? Why is it that so many children are becoming sick and obese?

If we are to believe all the information that the food manufacturing industry is telling us, the food they are marketing to us as ‘healthy’ and ‘good’ doesn’t seem to be working.

Something manufactured in a factory and marketed as nutritious is never going to equal fresh food picked directly from an organic garden.

Leonie trains students, teachers and carers about how to enjoy and experience the many varieties of foods from the school gardens The way we make, market and eat food today creates unhealthy results — rampant illness, hunger, poverty, community disintegration and ecological degradation — and threatens our future food supply. We, the responsible parents, have to stop the addiction to sugar, low nutrient food and junk food. Why wait for the government to address the major health problems of our children? We need to act now, ourselves.

Edible school gardens — an initiative making it happen How are we going to step up to this change?

It’s already happening.

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In ten schools on the Sunshine Coast, I, as coordinator of Edible School Gardens (www.edibleschoolgardens.com.au)— have taught and implemented permaculture gardens (permaculture is a design system for sustainable living) in primary schools since 2003. I train students, teachers and carers — not only about chemical free, nutrition-rich gardening but also about how to enjoy and experience the many varieties of foods coming from the school gardens.

a truly amazing day of community spirit Edible School Gardens offers a 12 month program run once a week. Initially, the students are taught about permaculture and design and they come up with a design for a school vegie garden. Students then approach the school and the local community for recycled products (eg. besser bricks, polypipe) to be used in the garden.

Blitzing the school garden There is a very special set-up day where the school community and Permaculture Noosa (www.permaculturenoosa.com.au) members come together with the students to have a ‘school garden blitz’.

This is a truly amazing day of community spirit, unity and productive work. At the end of the day we are all rewarded with an instant, no-dig permaculture garden with worm baths, herb spirals, veggie gardens and lots of proud children. www.communitygarden.org.au

(left) Children and adults from Permaculture Noosa at a school garden construction blitz. (centre) There’s plenty to show for all the hard work on harvest day.

The garden is prepared. It’s time for the students to get their hands dirty. They plant seeds, seedlings and herbs, make compost, set up the compost worms, grow their own mulch and taste the produce. The harder the work, the happier they are.

We need to provide our children with nutrient rich, health-giving, fresh food. We need edible gardens in all schools where children not only learn how to grow organic food without chemicals or pesticides, but also experience fresh food that is good for their brain, immune system and brings the benefit of antioxidants.

It’s Harvest Day — a day of celebration. In the morning we harvest all the crispy, fresh produce for our visiting chef to make lunch for the students. They enjoy being involved with the cooking and let their taste buds explode with the new-found natural flavours of freshly picked food. Because they have grown it, they will eat it. Bring out the dances and musicians and all our amazing food, and we are celebrating like kings.

Currently, I’m working in four schools and have another six wanting the Edible School Gardens program. Funding, of course, is essential for such a positive programme.

Health, education, life skills and more

Leonie Shanahan: LSSB@bigpond.com www.permaculturenoosa.com.au

another six want the Edible School Gardens program

School organic veggie gardens not only provide the students with the essential life skill of growing their own food. The gardening

Food is humanity’s staple.

Education and advocacy is our staple...

experience:

Sydney Food Fairness Alliance

• improves their health now and into the future • gives them greater self-esteem, confidence and a sense of achievement • help reverse the effects of climate change by sequestering carbon in soil and plants • affect how our children live as individuals and as members of local and global communities • most importantly, the pleasure gained from growing, harvesting and sharing food will be life-long and will teach them about sustainability and how precious our natural environment is.

www.communitygarden.org.au

We are many — nutritionists, health and community development workers, community gardeners, urban agriculture and local food advocates, permaculturists, local government, Transition Town advocates — but our message is the same...

Join us to work towards an equitable food system and keep Sydney’s urban fringe farmland productive, not paved.

www.sydneyfoodfairness.org.au

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Edible reading

for school garden mavens Outdoor Classrooms — www.outdoorclassrooms.com.au A co-production of two ex-teachers — Janet Millington, a permaculture educator on the Sunshine Coast, and Carolyn Nuttall in Brisbane — the book focuses on hands-on learning in the outdoor classroom. Curriculum, the outdoor classroom, teaching and learning, the revival of school gardens, the teacher as gardener and a history of school gardens are just a few of the topics covered.

Outdoor Classrooms authors Carolyn Nuttall (left) and Janet Millington.

Carolyn wrote ‘A Children’s Food Forest’ — the book that help launch food gardens as educational venues.

See next page).

Innovative, practical and affordable...

CC’s Edible Classroom Program Cultivating Community’s Edible Classroom consultancy service provides Melbourne schools with affordable and practical assistance in designing, building, planting and maintaining food gardens.

An edible classroom is a natural setting for learning. The Edible Classroom Program involves students in growing food at school and integrating garden based activities into the curriculum. We recognize the value of an outdoor learning space to engage students in earth-based education and education for a sustainable world.

implementing an holistic Edible Classroom

An experienced and inspirational staff

The program is currently active in the following schools: Thornbury Primary School, Fitzroy High School, Doveton North Primary School.

Cultivating Community has an inspirational team of expert garden teachers, garden designers, community facilitators and construction specialists to guide schools in

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program at your school. Staff have over five years of direct teaching and project management experience in establishing food gardens and activities in a range of different school settings.

The Edible Classrooms consultancy service provides a one-stop shop for schools who want to make more of their school environment.

Information: http://cultivatingcommunity.org.au

www.communitygarden.org.au

more tasty reading The Children’s Food Forest

Kitchen Garden Cooking

Topics include the experience of the Seville Road outdoor-indoor classroom, making an organic school garden, choosing a site and getting started, keeping school chickens, curriculum planning, children’s play and more.

Drawing on her experience in working with school children to prepare and cook what was grown in the school garden, this is a large format publication of Stephanie Alexander’s recipes.

Line illustrations are by Mary-Anne Cotter.

1996, Nuttall C; A Childrens’ Food Forest; FeFL Books, Wollongabba.

ISBN 0 646 29482

The Food Forest Resource Sheets A book of worksheets designed to assist teachers and students create a food garden in their schoolground, the A4 size book provides practical know-how as it educates.

Illustrations: Mary-Anne Cotter.

2003, Nuttall C; The Food Forest Resource Sheets; FeFL Books, Highgate Hill, Qld. ISBN 1 875 640 428.

Seed to Seed Gardens in Schools.

Entitled Seed to Seed Food Gardens in Schools, the book is aimed at teachers and parents.

It describes the establishment of food gardens that are biodiverse, organic and waterwise and that use a low input approach to the full plant cycle, from seed to seed.

Chapters include the rationale for gardens in schools, planning, planting and maintaining, harvesting and eating from the garden. And, of course, how to save seeds. A printed copy with black and white photos sells for $20, post paid. Alternatively, download the free, full colour pdf file: www.seedsavers.org

www.communitygarden.org.au

2006, Alexander S; Kitchen Garden Cooking; Penguin, Camberwell.

ISBN 13: 978 1 920989 49 1

Community Gardening in SA All you need to know about starting a community garden from the South Australian community garden network crew. The ideas in the manual are applicable in states other than South Australia.

See www.communitygarden.org. au to download a copy.

Northey Street City Farm Training Manual For community garden trainers and learners, all you need to learn about community gardening.

Distilled from the experience of the Northey Street City Farm crew in Brisbane. Info: Northey Street City Farm, 16 Victoria street, Windsor 4030.

E: northey@bigpond.net.au www.northeystreetcityfarm.org.au

Getting Started in Community Gardening Faith Thomas’ manual for the City of Sydney, which supports 23 community gardens. www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au

Starting in Community Gardening What you need to know to start a community garden... the online guide by Russ Grayson. www.communitygarden.org.au

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Around the gardens...

In inner-urban Sydney, the small Greg Hewish Memorial Community Garden provides allotments for nearby residents, many living in adjacent public housing. Solid brick, raised garden beds provide easy access and, combined with well-made paths, make for a lowmaintenance garden.

At Brisbane’s Northey Street City Farm, a raised vegetable bed made of durable galvanised iron and timber provides access for less-agile gardeners. The Edible Landscapes Nursery and one of the City Farm’s many rainwater tanks are seen in the background.

Food amongst the towers of a public housing estate...

Solander Community Garden, Waterloo, inner-Sydney.

As well as the city’s premier sustainability education centre offering training to the community, ranging from nationally accredited courses in permaculture design to one day workshops, Northey Street City Farm’s edible landscape, community gardens and market garden is an easy place to get lost in.

Fiona Campbell checks out a twining art work during an early Spring visit to Perth City Farm. The farm provides training to TAFE students and labour market programs and operates a weekly organic farmers’ market

Signage fills an educational role in community gardens.

The design, thoughtful wording and attractiveness of signs rewards visitors, who gain insight into the design and the installations found in the gardens (photo at Northey Street City Farm).

Vegetables in the subtropics — the mandala vegetable garden at Yandina Community Garden, Sunshine Coast.

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www.communitygarden.org.au