What is a community garden and how did they evolve?
A community garden is a shared growing space, generally held on government land, schools or churches where people can come together to grow food, herbs and flowers. They can either have individual allotments, shared growing spaces or both.
Community gardens in Australia began taking off in the early 1900’s helping local communities with food shortages. From the 1970’s-1980’s Australia started to see more community gardens around Sydney and Melbourne.
The first Northern Territory community garden was in Darwin, in the suburb of Jingili in 1995. The garden was started by Lila Notely, along with support from Darwin City Council, Power and Water, and other local bodies. Initially under the banner of the Organic Growers & Consumers Association of the Northern Territory, it was later renamed Jingili Community Garden Inc. in 2005. The Jingili Community Garden today is still an active and thriving community garden.
In Katherine in 2015, Food Ladder built a hydroponic greenhouse on a vacant block in town with the drive of the Katherine Women’s Organic Association, backing from the local council and pre-approval for funding from the Territory Government. Food Ladder ran in Katherine until 2023 providing fresh local produce as well as a learning environment for school students to learn about STEM through growing food.
The Alice Springs Community Garden started in 2007. Over a period of 10 years, the community garden developed into a functional garden open to the public to join. Today, Alice Springs Community Garden has a harvest café, 49 individual plots,16 communal plots as well as a children’s plot and wicking bed area. NT Farmers staff members Mariah Maughan and Hannah Leu had the pleasure of visiting the community garden in August and met with volunteer staff to discuss the activities and benefits of having a Community Garden in town.
Benefits of Community Gardens
There are several benefits of being part of a community garden including environmental aspects such as reducing food miles, supporting pollinators and biodiversity and encouraging composting and sustainability. The health aspects are obvious, with access to fresh produce and the physical activity you do when gardening. However, after speaking with volunteers from the Alice Springs Community Garden, the benefits extend far beyond environmental, with the social aspects of the garden highlighted as a significant benefit to the community.
Being part of a community such as the community garden offers families the opportunity to be a part of something. It allows migrants to grow specific foods that are part of their culture, as well as share those foods and teachings with others in the community from different cultures. Parents bring their children to a safe outdoor space, allowing them to garden with other children and spend time outdoors doing hands-on activities. It allows people to learn from others in the community who are happy to share their knowledge of how to grow specific fruit and vegetables or how to best manage certain pests and diseases. Through all the benefits the community garden offers Alice Springs, the social and community benefits shone through – it isn’t just about growing food, it’s about making connections with your neighbours and sharing common interests.
How They Work and How to Get Involved
Each community garden has their own rules and guidelines on how they operate however it usually starts with signing up as a member. This usually includes a small fee. You then have access to the community garden communal growing areas and its produce with the expectation that you help to maintain and grow the produce through the season/year. If you are interested in an individual plot of your own within a community garden, many community gardens offer this. For a fee you can rent out a plot to grow your own produce. The cost of this plot is generally considerably cheap for what is provided, often including reticulation, access to water, and structures to provide shade to the plants.
Most if not all community gardens in the NT have websites pages, so the best place to start is to look up where your local community garden is and contact them via phone or email.
If you are looking to feel part of a community, grow fresh produce, do an activity with you kids that is outdoors and hands on, or perhaps grow food that is common to your culture but not easily found in stores, consider joining a community garden, our guess is that you wont regret it!
