The community garden experience < our gardens

MAKING A START
Waterloo Community Gardeners turn the first sod

...Rhonda Hunt talks with Russ Grayson

Children carry out a soil nutrient test at Waterloo Community Garden.

A wall was conveted into a blackboard to help in planning and maintaining the garden. (left: Fiona Campbell right: Rhonda Hunt)

Waterloo Community Garden

Identified by researchers in the year 2000 as one of the top five disadvantaged areas in NSW, Waterloo is a place of mixed industrial/ residential development with a high number of Department of Housing tenants, a large proportion of whom come from non-English speaking backgrounds. Waterloo is where, around ten years ago, Rhonda Hunt was wondering what she was doing.

"I WAS WALKING the streets of Waterloo with my newly-born daughter? wondering what the hell I was doing in the inner city! I didn’t know anybody. I had a lot of time on my hands".

"I was involved in the Uniting Church. It was a small, struggling inner city parish of about 20 people. Behind the church there was land they weren’t doing anything with... land full of weeds, shopping trolleys, privet… all other sorts of things.

"I just put it to the church that it would be much better if we used the land for a community garden. There were so many highrises… people didn’t have access to a backyard… couldn’t grow their own food.

"So, I said, ‘how about it?’. They thought it was a great idea!

Dressed as pumpkins

"We called a community meeting. We dressed up as pumpkins and danced around the streets at the Redfern-Waterloo Festival… gave out information about a public meeting.

"About 15 to 20 people turned up. A core group of about eight continued on. From there, we started scavening bits of boards and stuff to make borders for our fledgling community garden.

"The money we just contributed... we didn't go for any grants. The church contributed water and we got straw from the police stables in Redfern.

"That was in 1991", explained Rhonda Hunt.

The soil was just sand

The gardeners soon found that starting a community garden means dealing with challenges.

"We found it really difficult because the soil was just sand. "Even now, after ten years of using stable straw every three months, the soil is still not very good", said Rhonda.

Dealing with difficulties

The church yard was divided into allotments and people started to garden.

Soon, however, things started to change.

"There were problems which developed after the first year or so because some of the people didn't agree with a philosophy of involving others from the local community. They wnted it to be 'their' garden. So that was a real difficulty.

"The people involved in the church, who saw it as a real community garden, were at conflict with those who just wanted a backyard close to where they lived. It was really difficult at this stage.

"That was about the time, I think, we decided just not to have a community garden. It died, basically... probably about 1993, 1994".

Resurrection

A solution appeared a little later when Rhonda enrolled in an EarthWorks course. (Earthworks is a community waste education program teaching composting and other waste reduction strategies).

Rhonda takes up the story: "My EarthWorks community outreach project was the community garden. That's when the whole second wave of... um... interest in the garden happened.

"People got really enthusiastic and more members became involved in the garden. At that stage it was decided to develop a philosophy of the garden so people who were coming along would really know what a community garden was".

Persevering through the following years, Waterloo Community Garden has gone back and forth between a shared garden and an allotment garden.

"At the moment, in the year 2000, it's allotment", said Rhonda.

Planting the Street Jungle

In the same year, a new group started to make use of the garden.

"Department of Health workers who had heard about the community garden came to me because I was working at South Sydney Council.

"They thought a community garden would be a good community health project of benefit to their HIV clients. They could have passive recreation, reduce their social isolation... um... and get organic food", Rhonda explained.

"They wondered how they could start a community garden. I told them it was a long, hard road".

Now, the Street Jungle Project has made a start in the Waterloo Community Garden.

Rhonda explained: "We've had a few fits and starts about how we're going to work together. In any new project its sometimes hard to work out your roles so I've had to deliniate what my role is and they have had to do the same and have had to argue with their bosses about how much time they should be able to spend in the garden.

"There have been some teething problems because some workers at the Department of Health didn't know what a community garden was and didn't have any experience in gardening or community development. They just had client contact and counselling skills, so for them it was quite difficult. They didn't know there was a whole process to go through to start a community garden.

HIV and the public

"There's whole philosophical problems in terms of HIV and their clients mingling with the general public", said Rhonda.

"In our project there were integrationists who thought that people with HIV should just - you know - be mingling with the general public and shouldn't have separate gardens.

"On the other hand there were the people from the old school who were terrified of their clients and themselves mixing with the general population".

Fulfilling a need

The simple fact that the garden has persevered through ten years of fluctuating use indicates that there is a need for it.

The Waterloo Community Garden demonstrates something beyond the food production and waste minimisation role it has taken on.

It points the way for churches to open up their unused land to the public, to become centres for community activity and, through the promotion of nutritious food, to encourage better health among their congregations and the public.

Lessons from Waterloo Community Garden

• start with a group of people who have developed a common vision of what the garden will be
• good communication between members is necessary
• a certain amount of adminstration in the garden is necessary - keep minutes of meetings, lists of members
• buddy new with existing members
• train new members so they know what is expected, how the garden works, how to be involved in composting and so on.

Footnote: Waterloo Community Garden was established in 1991. Rhonda Hunt is a community worker presently working in community waste education with South Sydney Council. Her job includes liaising with and assisting community gardeners in the South Sydney City Council local government area.

Update 2005: In the early 2000s, Rhonda left the city to work in waste education for Kiama City Council on the NSW south coast. Waterloo Community Garden has gone through a number of changes and continues to be gardened by local people.

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PAGE UPDATED... Thursday, 29 September 2005