About community gardens

An evaluation by Russ Grayson + Fiona Campbell - April 2000

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RECOMMENDATIONS

Recommendation 1:

Where space permits and where the uses are compatible, community gardens should be designed as multiple-use public spaces:

• as educational venues - a number of Sydney gardens are used by community colleges, TAFE, private course providers and, in the case of the Randwick garden, by the local Steiner school; Stella Maris Eco-Garden, in the grounds of a high school, is used by the Manly Environment Centre for community environment programs including waste education
• the use of Randwick Community Organic Garden by the Wildlife Information & Rescue Service (WIRES) for a large cage where injured birds were kept prior to release
• venues for passive recreation by non-gardening families, for solitude and for social purposes such as the performance and arts at UNSW Community Permaculture Garden

We can look to a small, community-managed, council owned park in Fremantle, Western Australia, as an indicator of how far the potential for multi-use can go. The park, about the size of a local housing block, offers:

• community food growing terraces
• childrens playground
• a grassed recreation space
• a picnic shed with pergola roof and table and seats made from reused railway sleepers
• a 'bog garden' of native wetland plants
• a 'sand dune' garden separating the park from the footpath and planted with locally indigenous species of beachside dune vegetation, including bush food
• a stone entrance arch decorated with ceramic tiles made by local school children the harvesting of rainwater from the roofs of neighbouring houses, its storage in an underground tank and its reticulation as irrigation for the community food garden and the lawn area.

As this park demonstrates, the critical resource when it comes to multiple-use design is imagination.

An innovative approach to demonstrating the practicality of appropriate local government policies in multiple-use community gardens has been only partly explored through waste minimisation training. There may be potential in policies such as Agenda 21 and council conservation strategies, for instance.

Multifunctional elements also enhance community garden sustainability because the number of stakeholders - people with a direct interest in the wellbeing of the garden - is increased.

Recommendation 2:

Community garden trainers, government instrumentalities assisting community gardens and community gardeners adopt an approach to garden development and growth that can be summarised as:

• start small
• grow from the edges of your present development
• expand in manageable chunks
• remain compact and intensively gardened.

This strategy prevents gardens sprawling and becoming difficult to manage because they occupy too much space for the number of gardeners. It prevents gardens become aesthetic eyesores, overgrown with weeds and in disrepair and it allows for more time spent in gardening and socialising rather than cutting weeds and doing repetitive maintenance.

Start your garden development in a single place and work out. A compact, intensively managed garden is a productive garden.

Recommendation 3:

State and local government maximise the potential of community gardens to contribute to the nutritional health of communities and to serve as recreational, educational and social venues by funding the employment of community garden liaison officers/ coordinators. The precedent for this are the bushland and community waste education officers employed by local government.

Community garden coordinators could:

• promote and encourage local involvement in community gardens by groups such as schools, the aged, the disabled and socially isolated ethnic groups
• facilitate the use of community gardens for cultural activities, including the construction and display of public art as well as music and poetry performances
• train gardeners in basic horticulture
• implement waste recycling, reuse and community waste education programs in the gardens
• assist in the design and establishment of new gardens
• demonstrate appropriate local government policies in the gardens.

Recommendation 4:

The Australian Community Gardens Network, in consultation with local and/or state government staff and planning professionals, develop a set of guidelines on the establishment, construction, management and use of community gardens and associated facilities for the guidance of local government staff.

The guidelines would contain information on:

• different types of community gardens (allotments/ shared) and opinion and factual information regarding their performance
• the design of community gardens with reference to social, environmental and land management criteria
• the types of structures, rainwater harvesting and storage installations and other components of community gardens
• composting and waste conversion/ reuse systems applicable to community gardens
• the management of community gardens using the above criteria plus information on democratic decision making to facilitate participatory processes among community gardening groups
• risk management in gardens
• opportunities for multiple-use
• practical, low-cost forms of local government assistance to community gardens.

Recommendation 5:

Make allowances for the establishment of community gardens in state and local government landuse planning instruments.

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PAGE UPDATED... Monday, 14 January 2002