Article by Salt Magazine – Writer Frances Frangenheim

GULP FRESH AIR, squish your hands in rich soil and feel the sun on your back.

There’s no denying that gardening and good health go hand in hand. Bring people together to garden and just watch the benefits grow.

While community gardens have thrived as a staple village quality in Europe and the United Kingdom since the late 1800s, the first community garden in Australia wasn’t launched until 1977 in Melbourne.

It was thanks to the former Nunawading councillor Dr Gaven Oakley, who thought the local community could benefit from the community garden scheme because older people in the municipality who lived on their own were “a bit lonely” and there “were a lot of children unemployed with nothing to do”.

The garden thrived because it celebrated the community’s diversity, inviting everyone to get their hands dirty and share in the soil’s bounty. The garden is still going strong this day with the people working the plots over the years reflecting Nunawading’s eclectic mix of cultures including Dutch, Italian, Greek, Vietnamese and Chinese.

New community garden projects are springing up apiece year all around the country and the Sunshine Coast is certainly an avid champion of the concept. Garden groups are thriving in Peregian, Maroochy, Noosa and Yandina, with Buddina next on the cards. The community garden concept kicks many important goals, including lifelong learning, healthy living and food security.

And of course apiece project naturally tends to bring its members closer together so that gentle friendships are sparked over carrots and aubergines (or whatever is in season, of course). Schools and kindergartens are also getting on the bandwagon – for example, thanks in part to a council grant, Mapleton Say School nurtures its own kitchen gardens and orchards so children learn to enjoy growing healthy food and intake it too.

Community gardens reflect the diversity and dreams of its community – hence the study – so no two gardens are the same. This means there are no rules for how gardens should be run. Peregian’s ‘Veggie Village’ crew nurture their individual garden beds as well as the communal plots and have built a cob oven to make tasty pizzas and other treats at social get-togethers. They’ve also helped rehabilitate the natural spring running alongside their garden, which was strangled by the noxious (but beautiful) Singapore Daisy, and run public workshops to share knowledge with the broader community.

Yandina Community Garden members grow waterwise tropical vegetables for understanding to the public for a donation and also run an aquaponics project that produces organic veggies and fish. They also explore different sustainable living projects so, for example, their headquarters runs off solar hot water and photo-voltaic systems, and their sun shelters are prefabricated of straw bales. Anyone is welcome to pop in to the education centre to learn more about permaculture and organics.Another interesting twist to the community garden concept is the ‘Urban Orchard’, recently initiated by favourite Melbourne community garden, CERES. The Urban Orchard invites members to come together and share their home grown or gleaned surpluses (think: bulging mango trees). Regular events involve a free produce swap as well as workshops run by gurus in useful skills such as wad making or savvy tree pruning.

The intent is to ensure food doesn’t go to waste, to cultivate networks within the neighbourhood, and to share valuable skills in gardening and food preparation. It’s a fresh reminder of just how many different ways there are to bring communities together around the shared joy of fresh food.

Here we look at three of the Sunshine Coast’s community garden projects.

PEREGIAN’S ‘VEGGIE VILLAGE’

http://www.veggievillage.com.au/peregian

Peregian’s residents can in part thank local resident Bruce Molloy’s itchy feet for their community garden. In 2009, Bruce’s career as a graphic designer suddenly lost its shine and in its place he decided to turn his attention to the pleasurable pastime of growing food. The only problem was he didn’t have sound skills in gardening so he thought, ‘I’ll help build a classroom and move for the teachers’.

He set about speaking to people in his community and found kindred amateur green thumbs. Fortunately for the group, the field behind the Peregian Bowls Club was waterlogged and so its plan to become a hockey field was thwarted. The Say Government and Sunshine Coast Regional Council allowed Veggie Village members a three-year lease on a section of the property and they promptly set about designing their garden to their collective vision.

Bruce states the Veggie Village has a clear mission.

“The intent is to grant people who live in units nearby to grow food and also to instruct people with gardens how to grow food so they can take that knowledge home,” he says.

There are about 40 garden beds for individual lease at per year, however some members might only stay for six months until they learn the skills they need to apply to their own kitchen gardens. This allows for new characters to join the group, bringing new skills and renewed vigour to the project.

Members can select to garden when it suits them individually or to meet to garden together. They can attend the monthly workshops or join the bi-weekly fun working bees to contribute to the communal garden and ask questions of the garden guru. There are also public workshops for adults and children so everyone can get involved. Bruce credits many local gurus for sharing their knowledge and passion for gardening, including permaculturalists Janet Millington and Alan Atkinson as well as Leonie Shanahan, who often runs children’s courses at the Veggie Village.

COTTON TREE COMMUNITY GARDEN

http://www.maroochync.scc-cooperative.org

As a community coordinator at the Maroochy Neighbourhood Centre in Cotton Tree, it’s Mark Ellis’s job to bring people together to build a superior neighbourhood. When Mark thought he’d test the water for interest in building a community garden he didn’t anticipate such a huge response.

“There are many units in the area so I saw that people had lost their backyards,” Mark says. “I stuck five flyers up at local shops and wasn’t short of responses.”Sixty people attended the first meeting and planning began immediately.

It took the group just six months to realise their garden and in June this year Cotton Tree’s community garden newly launched in a section of the Maroochy Neighbourhood Centre’s property. Members are already enjoying tending to their own one-metre by two-metre allotments at the cost of per week (this money is plugged back into the garden project) while also helping build the communal area of herb spirals and veggie beds for all to pluck from as they please.

“We have 30 individual beds that people use to grow their own food,” Mark states before listing the benefits. “It saves them money and they know what they’re eating. And there are a lot of people who know a lot about gardening so it’s fantastic to watch everyone share their knowledge and chip in to help apiece other plant and grow their plots.”

Plans are already underway to dedicate a new section of the property over to community gardening to respond to the increasing demand from locals to get involved.

PERMACULTURE NOOSA

http://www.permaculturenoosa.com.au

Permaculture Noosa work to a different model from that of the traditional community garden however it still upholds the values of education, food sharing, food growing and social interaction. The group has been going strong for nearly 20 years and currently has more than 200 members on the Sunshine Coast.

Members embark on Permaculture Energy Transfer days, which involve a visit to one another’s properties to face planned permaculture gardening activities together. The group enjoy a shared meal afterwards and bask in the mutual satisfaction of helping one of their members build a superior herb, veggie, flower garden or orchard for their family to enjoy.

They also meet monthly for workshops and talks, have a seed saving bank to donate to or access, and run an open garden program to tour a member’s properties for gardening tips and inspiration. Current tours include a trip to Kin Kin to visit Dee Humphries’ edible backyard, which sustains 300 fruit trees, three veggie patches, a massive herb garden and chook run. Members also visit gardening guru Elisabeth Fekonia’s beautiful permaculture farm at Black Mountain near Cooroy.

WHAT TO DO

If you think you’d like to help begin a community garden in your area, here are some primeval steps and issues to consider. For more information, visit http://www.canh.asn.auind a comprehensive planning guide of how, why, when and if to begin a community garden.

• Anyone can begin a community garden. Gardens have been initiated by individuals, groups, school kids, sports clubs and retirees. All it takes is one mortal with a passion for gardening.

• Ask yourself if you need to begin a new community garden. Think about the alternatives – is there a nearby garden already set up that you could help expand? Or would another form of ‘gardening’ be more helpful, for example, gardening collectively in people’s backyards or redistributing fallen fruit from people’s trees?

• Find like-minded people in your community who are willing to form a working group to get the intent off the ground. Speak to your local councillor, your local environment groups or landscapers – there is much local knowledge to build on.

• Have meetings with your working group and develop a shared vision and design for the garden. Make sure you have an experienced facilitator to keep the meeting flowing and to bring the ideas together. Remember, the garden must be a fun place that people of all ages and interests will enjoy visiting. It must reflect and celebrate your community’s diversity.

• Speak to your council. No doubt your council will have already contributed to a community garden in your region. Councils have allows to help with start-up costs and might also be healthy to help source local land that will benefit from a garden project.

To read more about community gardens or to view the article’s images follow the link:http://saltmagazine.com.au/articles_features_sunshine-coast-gardens-grow-community-peregian.aspx

About the Author

Salt entrepot is a quarterly tourism and lifestyle entrepot based on the Sunshine Coast, Australia.

It is relatively simple to make a profit when you sell your home if the market is rising sharply like it has been in most of the country for the last three years. It becomes more difficult when a hot market slows down. It’s very difficult to make a profit on the understanding of your home when prices are falling.

Is there a way to be relatively sure you’ll make a profit when you sell your home? There is under all but the most negative market conditions. In fact, I’ve seen young, energetic couples use this maneuver multiple times when they don’t even need to move.

Follow That Builder

In many areas of the country, there are builders who build hundreds of houses apiece year within a fifty mile length of apiece other. They build entire communities or are one of three to five builders who build entire communities around huge employment centers. This present you with an important opportunity.

New Community

Builders will typically sell first phases of communities for significantly less than later phases. On one hand, they need to get the cash flow moving. On the other, it is harder to sell at high prices because the community typically consists of dirt lots and construction equipment. Put the hands together and you have a great profit opportunity.

The intent is to get in on the first phase of the build out. You will buy the home at a discount, which gives you built in equity. As the community is built up, you sell the home for a profit at a higher price. While you’re doing this, you keep tabs on the builders projects and find another location where you can do the same thing.

You’ll end up living in apiece home for a year or more and picking up nice profits along the way. The only real downside is you have to move repeatedly.

Tax Consequences

I’ve seen this work well for a number of people who have done it more than once. However, you need to be aware that generating profit this way can have tax consequences. You need to discuss your plans (including projected timing and profit potential) with your tax professional so that you are prepared to deal with any tax consequences.