UNSW Community Permaculture Garden

January 1995... the role of motivated individuals is critical to the success of community-based enterprise.

Leith Sharp (left) made the idea of a UNSW community garden a reality by building an enthusiastic team. (right - Pacific Edge's Fiona Campbell who taught the design course and provided training).

After completing site analysis and the garden design, construction started. The circular garden, here being sheet mulched, was built first. The outer circle of recycled bricks marks the edge of the path around the garden bed.

Jurgen, a student at UNSW and one of the original gardeners, is seen at left.

The garden was expanded by snaking paths from the circle garden, then infilling between them with mulched garden beds.

The hard work of digging holes for the ponds (background) was started.

A mulch of straw - stable sweepings - was laid over a weed barrier of overlapping newspaper up to ten pages thick. Seedlings were planted into pockets of compost placed into holes made in the mulch. Construction of the garden followed the plan developed earlier.

Within a year the garden had expanded to fill the available space.

Bark chips were used for the paths and stable sweepings from the nearby racecourse were used to produce compost and for mulching the garden beds. Urban areas produce plenty of waste materials useful to community and home gardeners.