Friendship the added bonus of community gardens

Pockets of land across the city are being transformed into productive oases as the City of Sydney joins forces with urban green thumbs to make community gardens grow.

Pineapples, coffee, cardamom and comfrey are among the crops grown on 19 sites tucked onto rooftops, church land and parks across the city.

Although Ms Henderson has lived in Redfern for more than a decade, she has only started running into people she knows since joining the community garden and making new friends.

“I just can’t believe the difference belonging to the group has made. Every time I go down the street to the shops now, I see someone I know.”

In Ultimo, the local community garden has become a place where members have joined the neighbourhood choir, further cementing their links to the area. International students have even done some digging in exchange for a bag of greens.

Community gardens are popping up everywhere – on apartment rooftops, on land owned by churches, next to public housing and in free public spaces.

While the City imposes no rules on how each group should till the soil, many embrace the principles of permaculture and organic gardening to encourage abundant crops.

Local cafes are now swapping coffee grounds and household vegetable scraps in exchange for hosting regular garden group meetings.

In Ultimo, Pauline van Winsen said local garden members were learning about the origins of their food and how long it takes to grow. This has led to a greater appreciation of the importance of sustainable living.

“It’s really important people understand where their food comes from and realise that it doesn’t appear instantaneously,” Ms van Winsen, a retired IT specialist, said.

“If it stops people from buying stuff and chucking it away when it rots in their fridge, then that’s a good thing.

If it makes people hug their farmers a bit more, then that’s good too.”

Some gardens are also becoming places to learn about more than just gardening.

The Ultimo Community Garden has become a focal point for academics, including social insect researchers and an anthropology student from Sydney University, a pest surveyor from the Department of Primary Industries, and a design student from UTS.

In Woolloomooloo, one of Sydney’s oldest community gardens is hoping to donate its colony of native bees to a local primary school.

In Chippendale, high school science teacher Deborah Segal said she enjoyed growing cotton to show locals and her teenage pupils the source of some of their clothing.

“I used to work for the CSIRO and I have a degree in plant science but, really, I think it’s the social aspect that I enjoy the most,” Ms Segal said.

“It’s most rewarding to get to know the people who live near me and develop that sense of community.”

For more information visit City of Sydney