This article was written by a friend of ours that Linda has known since school days, she lives near Melbourne but we still try and keep eachother updated on what we are doing.
By Melinda Hume-Cook
A few months ago, a group of about 20 people met to talk about establishing a community garden in the City of Manningham, an area north east of Melbourne which includes the suburbs of Doncaster, Doncaster East and Templestowe. Although our ages, backgrounds and gardening skills varied widely, everyone at that initial meeting voiced similar reasons for wanting to give it a go -
- an increasing number of ‘garden free’ apartments being built in the area
- somewhere to learn, collaboratively about growing food
- the hope to include some fresh vegies in food parcels delivered by local charities
- putting some unused/neglected plots of land to good use.
- somewhere to connect with other people in our local area who liked to garden or cook with fresh ingredients
- a place where everyone would be welcome to participate and could take herbs, vegies or flowers as they needed.
The first step was to get advice from people associated with successful community gardens in other areas of Melbourne and then think about what we might do with the couple of plots of land available to us.
The decision was made to go ahead with land surrounding ‘The Hub’ – the office and meeting rooms of the Manningham Uniting Church in Templestowe village. The area would get sufficient daily sunshine and gardeners would have access to the required amenities – storage sheds, kitchen and toilet facilities.
So far we’ve had three working bees to clear rubbish and prepare the soil. The photo below shows the clearing of an agapanthus bed alongside the church car park. Gypsum was scattered to break up the soil and sheep manure has been worked into it. It’s hoped this area will become a herb garden.
An area designated for vegetables has been worked over, fertiliser added and a small area planted with strawberries. Sweet pea seedlings were planted along the fence to add colour and attract bees. Sheep manure will be added to the remainder of the plot and soil turned over before planting vegies in Spring.
The above photo shows the total herb garden area. The vegie gardens will be in the ‘back yard’ area on the other side of the fence. The photo below shows pathways being laid between the beds.
Plans are being drawn up for the remainder of the yard where we will garden with a view to provide LinC Manningham – a local charitable organisation - with fresh produce for their clients.
A couple of compost bins were found on the property and are now in use, and as I type, we’re expecting the delivery some apple crates which will be used for raised garden beds. We will also apply for a community grant to (hopefully) fund a water tank and seedlings for the first crop.
The church community has been enormously supportive, contributing newspapers, ice cream containers, scraps for the compost bins and fertiliser.
If any readers are viewing this article and think they’d like to be involved, please phone The Hub on (03) 9846-2012 and they’ll put you in touch with one of our members.