The community garden experience < our gardens

GARDENING, EDUCATION AND HEALTH
Wynn Vale Community Garden is many things to its gardeners

This is an edit of an article that first appeared in Permaculture South Australia's The Living Soil. It was a speech at 2004 Seed Savers' Network conference in Adelaide.

Author: Gloria Bristow.

From a modest start in 1995, Wynn Vale Community Garden went on to win the South Australia Healthy Hearts Award for Best Community Project in 1997 and, five years later, the inaugural Rotary John Tilley Memorial Award.

Planning for Wynn Vale Community Garden started in 1994 with the formation of a steering committee comprising local residents, the local council neighbourhood development officer, TTG Community Health Services and the South Australia Police Young Offenders Unit. A site behind Wynn Vale Community House and kindergarten was selected. It is council land, barren, with a heavy clay soil and was infested with perennial weeds.

Soon, a small group of volunteers had transformed the patch and funding financed fencing, fruit trees, shadehouse, hothouse, second-hand shed and paving for wheelchair access. Further funding has come from the SA state government and North Adelaide and Barossa Catchment Water Management Board and council is to subsidise the community garden’s insurance.

Design was important

The community garden was developed according to Permaculture design and organic gardening principles so that those with health problems can make use of it. Half the site is given to individual allotments of 10 square metres which are leased at a concessionary rate $10 per quarter.

The remainder of the site is common land with a variety of fruit trees with extended ripening periods, raised vegetable beds for disabled gardeners, herbs, ornamentals and a meeting place.

Educating the community

The school adjacent to the community garden leases a plot and the gardening experience has raised the self-confidence and self-esteem of young students. Two ten year old boys rented a plot, learned about germination and now know what fresh vegetables taste like. The kindergarten’s four year olds have also been in the garden and CAS bring their wheelchair-bound patients every Tuesday.

There are workshops in gardening skills, including gardening after back injury. The community garden appeared on ABC television’s Gardening Australia and on television news in 1999, with the launch of our Nature Loo composting toilet.

Problems have included vandalism, the theft of hand tools and a shortage of labour – most of the gardeners are elderly.

Last year, council agreed to an extension of the community garden by 30 metres. Here, we plan to establish indigenous bush tucker plants and name the area Tolerance Park. A grant from the Premier’s Fund will supply additional tools and equipment and we would like to set up a ‘Share the Harvest’ scheme so that unused fruit grown in backyards can be distributed to people who can use it. In the meantime, we give back to the community the ethic of working together, self-reliance and productivity from healthy exercise.

PAGE UPDATED... Thursday, 29 September 2005