The community garden experience < our experience

THERE'S MORE THAN A BEACH TO BONDI

by Russ Grayson

This story was first published in ABC Organic Gardener magazine iin 2005.

Imagine the ideal urban landscape – in the distance, medium density apartments above a commercial centre that blends into a public park with a children’s playground. In the foreground is a productive community garden that produces food for some of those whose homes are the apartments. This is not mere imagination – it is reality at Bondi Junction, one of Sydney’s most populous suburbs.

Six years after the area was first covered in mulch, the Eastern Suburbs Community Garden is brim-full of food. Spinach and chard, Asian vegetables and tomatoes spill from the beds to encroach the paths. Around the edge, inside the enclosing chainlink fence, young fruit trees have been planted among perennial shrubs. To walk into the garden is to enter a landscape more akin to a market garden than an urban park.

The community garden with the towers of Bondi Junction behind

A garden aesthetic and productive

There are three things the visitor notices upon entering the community garden. The first is that this is a tidy garden where appearance – aesthetics – has been taken into consideration, an important factor given that community gardens on local government land (the garden occupies the corner of a Waverly Council park) must be maintained in a presentable condition if they are not to engender local criticism.

The second factor is that the garden is well designed and maintained. A wide, central path takes gardener and visitor past sturdily-constructed private allotments to the shared, circular garden at the top of the gentle, south-facing slope. Access is a design consideration given proper attention in this community garden.

The third point noticed by the visitor is not tangible – it is the genuine welcome that gardeners give the visitor.

Garden spokesman, Rob Joyner

View from the shared circular garden over the allotments to the nursery, meeting shelter and tree garden.

An accidental find

Rob Joyner’s story is typical of community gardeners: “I got involved after seeing a TV programme about a community garden on a Melbourne high-rise Housing Commission site. It was amazing what they were doing there and how they were bringing the community together. It seemed to me a wonderful thing to do, to allow people to become neighbours again, to make contact. The idea of growing organic vegetables in an urban situation looked tremendously appealing. I retired early and thought that community gardening was something I had time to look at. Then I found out that, underneath my eyes, yes, there was a community garden in Bondi Junction. I joined immediately. That was five years ago.”

As we walk through the garden on a warm, late-summer day, Rob explains that a high level of planning and organization has been critical to the successful operation of the garden.

“There are between 30 and 40 members who manage either the private allotments or the shared gardens. We have a monthly meeting where we get together to talk about the garden. At the end of it we have a lunch, usually based on whatever is currently in the garden. Last Sunday we did guzpacho, which was based on our tomato crop, and there is pumpkin soup when they are in season. We extend the gardening experience into actually preparing the food, and that’s very popular. Eating is tremendously important to us.

“Each year we make a plan for the following year. This year we have the renewal of our lease and we are about to undergo a review by Waverly Council. We hope to get a five year lease which will give us some continuity and some security of tenure. It is very difficult to generate a community resource like this without some security of tenure.

“We’re on a very low budget and we aim to be as self-sufficient as we can. Within out budget we should be able to have one capital item once every couple of years.”

We walk past the compost tumblers, which Rob explains are easy to use though they are big drums and need someone with a bit of muscle to turn them, and onto a flattened terrace where a circular garden has been constructed of raised, wedge-shaped beds, much as if a huge pie has been carved into segments by some horticultural giant. Occupying roughly half the area of the community garden, the creative thinking that characterises the management of the site has clearly been active here.

“Members work in six teams. There are six segments to the garden with each group responsible for a segment. The garden is managed by crop rotation and, through the seasons, everybody has the opportunity to have a go at the different guilds of plants in each rotation. We see it as a ‘wheel of learning’ where the teams are exposed to the whole range of organic vegetables we can grow. Each team consists of members with skills in seed raising, somebody that can do some heavy lifting, somebody with a car… they are multi-skilled teams. We bring new members into these teams so that they join with a group to look after them from the beginning. If someone is interested in joining we ask them to come along three or four times before they actually join. We find that gives them a chance to see if community gardening is a pursuit they want to seriously take up”, explained Rob.

Those members holding raised-bed allotments are people with sufficient time to maintain them, however those with less time availability are not excluded. They maintain the shared gardens, doing whatever is necessary to keep them in productivity. The harvest is divided among the gardeners present.

“We don’t regulate crop sharing because we don’t have to. It works on the basis of what’s a fair thing and it works very well. Gardeners record what they take in our day book and we have had no problems with this arrangement, it’s been a very successful, mutual system”, Rob said.

Creative thinking is extended to acquiring the mulch that covers the gardens. The gardeners have an arrangement with a local supplier to sweep his floors in return for the sweepings. Rob explains: “Sometimes we get quite nice chopped lucerne offcuts and that keeps us in straw. Waverly Council supplies the woodchip used on the paths, free of charge. It rots, and we use the base of it to add to the beds as a soil nutrient once it has broken down.”

Organic sprays are used for pest management and the garlic, chilli and onion spray is fantastic for flies, the gardeners say. Rob says they make their own pest oil mixture of detergent, water and cooking oil to deter aphids. A molasses spray is used for some of the things that attack the cucurbits and for mildew.

The nursery with the sub-tropical food forest behind

Crop rotation beds in the circular garden were managed by teams of gardeners. Compost (black plactic bin) was made close to where it was to be used.

Drought-proofing the garden

With Sydney suffering drought over the summer and restriction imposed on the frequency and times of garden irrigation, the community gardeners are keen to demonstrate water conservation. The mulching of gardens is one strategy and water harvesting the other.

“We saved for and installed a 4500 litre rainwater tank fed from the roof of the Waverly child care centre next door”, Ron says proudly as we stand in front to the large black cylinder. “It has been here since August last year and has not run empty yet. We got through summer with 90 per cent of the garden being watered from the tank.”

Organic gardening is written into the garden’s constitution… “to be, teach and promote organic gardening…  members join because of their interest in propagating organic food and, of course, eating it”, says Rob.

Challenges and success

To start a community garden calls for persistence, problem solving and the kind of thinking that overcomes difficulties.

“Public liability insurance is the biggest single item we have to finance. When the fees went up substantially two years ago we initially couldn’t get insurance and this was a big threat to our existence. Our current policy is about two-thirds of our annual running costs. That’s a big item, all for a bit of paper and a promise.

“It’s a battle with the sand here and we are looking at improving the soil through a stronger composting regime. We have instituted a green waste collection from our neighbours in the surrounding houses. There’s a bin at the front of the garden where they can put their scraps. We want to promote the message of their being responsible for their green waste and making sure it is recycled and we want to get it into the garden. Dr  Earth, the local organic food shop, gives us green waste.

“We have done seed saving fairly informally in the past and this year we hope to put in a programme of seed saving systematically, where seed saved one season can be passed on to the next. Our objective is to get everybody involved”.

As for their successes: “I guess the biggest success would be to look at the garden now and see it as a green oasis throbbing with life and lots of enthusiastic members enjoying their gardening, compared to the acre of woodchip that it was five years ago. The change on the site is the biggest success”, Rob suggests.

Welcoming sign with blackboard for chalking messages and Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network logo

Venturing into education

The gardeners instituted a schools education programme last year when Bondi Public, a primary school, took part in hands-on sessions in seed raising, composting, worm farming, water conservation, bush tucker and soils.

Kindimindi pre-school, from Tamarama, brought about 20 young children and the gardeners modified the programme for them and included an art segment. Bronte Public School will attend in the current term. The gardeners plan to continue the programme for schools in the local government area.

Attracting members

Although many gardeners occupy the apartment blocks in the vicinity, attracting new members is important to community gardens in areas of high population movement, such as Bondi Junction.

“We use the local paper, that’s probably our best source of new members”, says Rob. “We have leaflets around the community and  in the libraries, bookshops and places where we think local people will see them. We do a regular spot on Eastern Suburbs Radio and word of mouth is very important.

“There is a $30 annual subscription and we also raise money through lunches – we do not charge much because we use produce from the garden.

Eastern Suburbs Community Garden stands as an example of how creative thinking, democratic decision making, a high level of organization and effort put into developing positive links with local residents and local government add up to a successful community garden that, in terms of annual volume of produce and sense of community, must make this one of the most productive community gardens in Sydney.

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PAGE UPDATED... Thursday, 7 June 2007