The community garden experience < our gardens

BETWEEN THE SWALES -
Habitat in Harmony Community Garden

A footbridge crosses a swale. The area between the swales is planted to fruit trees and vegetables which draw their water from the swales.

In Australia, community centres have provided land and support for a number of community gardens. Habitat in Harmony, located on the southern fringe of NSW's Hunter region, is one of these.

Report and photos by Russ Grayson...

Watering plants can be a challenge when you have no taps in the garden. The enthusiastic gardeners at Habitat in Harmony community Garden, however, have come up with a solution - swales.

The swales - contour ditches dug across the slope, along the line of the contour - catch and retain rainwater as it runs down the community garden's gently sloping land. Over the days following rain, the water infiltrates into the soil where it is taken up by the roots of the fruit trees and vegetables planted in the area between the swales. The swales at the community garden are abour half a metre in depth.

A community project

You will find Habitat and Harmony next to the Belmont Neighbourhood Centre not far south of the industrial city of Newcastle. It was set up with the idea of addressing the needs of disadvantaged members of the local community and doing something about environmental problems in the area.

Support for the community garden came from Lake Macquarie City Council, which provided the land, and the Department of Planning Hunter Area Assistance Scheme, which provided a capital grant for the purchase of construction materials. Labour to develop the site came from an Eastlake Skills Centre job training programme course in landscaping and a New Work Opportunities project funded through the federal Department of Employment, Education and Training.

Developing infrastructure

Following a permaculture design, the trainees and gardeners built composting bays where green waste could be converted into garden fertiliser, improved the site's poor soil, established a windbreak of native species and an orachard, controlled erosion, paved a training area and equipped it with seating, constructed retaining walls and a bridge, a propagation area, shadehouse and hothouse and connected solar and wind power systems.

Habitat in Harmony is an environmental project of the Belmont Neighbourhood Centre and makes use of organic gardening techniques.

Information: Belmont Neighbourhood Cente, 359 Pacific Highway, Belmont, NSW;
PO Box 347 Belmont North, NSW 2280.

PAGE UPDATED... Thursday, 29 September 2005