Community food gardening

With changing and uncertain times people are going back to basics – seeking to regain some control over their food, its origins and its nutritional and dollar value. This combined with concerns over environmental factors has seen the expansion of a network of Community Gardens in most municipalities and cities throughout the world.

As suburbia sprawls and arable land is turned over to housing, houses whose footprints are becoming larger, we are building areas that are at times socially alienating as well as being unsuitable for growing food. Inner city living with all its conveniences also has limiting factors for food production but with initiative and innovative thinking, anonymous spaces are being turned into urban edible landscapes.

Landscape architects and town planners are now realising the intrinsic value of shared horticultural spaces, the social, emotional and physical benefits translating favourably in cost/benefit analyses. So much so in fact that governments at all levels are making available funding and legislation to allow and encourage such projects.

Community gardens are not anything new. Allotments have been in many European cultures for centuries, particularly the Scandinavian countries. Wartime saw the "Victory Gardens" being used to supply food in the UK, US and Australia. The emergence of Community Gardens as we know them today began in the US in the early sixties, in amongst other social upheavals of that time. The late 1970s was when Australia started to see our very first Community Gardens, here in Victoria it was at Nunawading in 1977. Other states soon followed, with the real movement beginning in the mid nineties and into the twenty-first century.

Now Community Gardens are dotted around public housing developments, kindergartens and schools, community centres, prisons, hospitals, aged care facilities, parks and many open spaces.

Urban edible gardens received world wide media attention when Michelle Obama famously planted a vegetable garden on the southern lawn of the White House in March 2009. This simple act, followed by her book American Grown, tells the story of the White House kitchen garden and gardens across America and has validated the simple act of growing your own food. The garden has become a community focussed one where children and others come to learn the basics of kitchen gardening.

Community Gardens have many different profiles, some are initiated and run by residents of an area or institution, some are auspiced by Service Clubs such as Lions, some are funded and managed by health bodies, local councils or government sectors.

An example — In Melbourne, the Public Housing Community Gardens in the inner suburbs of Collingwood and Richmond were initially started by Basil Natoli as part of Coll-LINK under the direction of a local inter-church council in the late 1980s.

By 1998 Cultivating Community was born and by 2000 Basil was employed by the Department of Human Services – Office of Public Housing as the first Community Garden Project Manager. These gardens provide for its residents the opportunity to maintain cultural practices and traditions as well as growing foods that may not be available in their new homeland. It also gives them the chance to mingle with other people from all ethnic backgrounds, religions and cultures with the help of the universal language of food.

Other gardens have been started by seeding grants provided by health authorities and government agencies that are now recognising the “flow-on” benefits of investing in such projects.

Sometimes it is the enthusiastic residents of an area that call public meetings, lobbying and garnering support and funds independently, starting from the real grass roots level. Whatever and however these gardens start they give all participants the chance to dip their digits into the earth and take control over some of their food.

Community gardens give credence to the positive power of small actions. In establishing these groups we decrease food miles, reduce environmental costs and improve food security and promote healthy lifestyles. When properly managed they are inclusive of all ages, abilities and cultures, creating common bonds and resilience which can effectively build community.

The concept of growing, sharing and celebrating together as a community is part way to a solution for these uncertain times.