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Edith and her partner Shannon live in a block of six units and Edith started eyeing off “the patch of dirt” behind her building, after successfully growing herbs and other plants on their balcony.
They started with two garden beds, after getting strata approval and soon caught the productive gardening bug. There’s now 15 beds – all filled with fruit and vegetables during the warmer months.
Edith found the recycled garden beds through online freebie sites and gumtree and had several tonnes of soil delivered.
Crops now include spinach, silverbeet, rocket, lettuce, Asian greens, cabbage, kale, broccoli, and in spring and summer they also have pumpkin, peas, eggplant, cucumber, cauliflower, cherry tomatoes and various herbs.
Unit living:
Edith’s advice for people looking to grow in a shared space is to gather a few supportive neighbours, “before taking it to the overall strata community”.
“Have some designs in your head already that you can pitch and really make sure you take responsibility,” she says.
She says you may include this in minutes of meetings or even add a by-law.
Challenges:
In the cooler months, considerable shade is cast over the garden from a neighbouring building. This is a common dilemma for gardeners in higher density areas.
Even in summer Edith and Shannon experiment with the “light situation.”
As Edith explains she visits the garden at different times of the day and marks out where there is full sun and observes how the light and shady areas change.
Community connection:
The garden is a space where the neighbours can talk to each other and perhaps pick a few herbs for dinner. Edith shares left over produce through the building’s WhatsApp group.
She’s keen to learn more about gardening and connects with other gardeners both online and in person.
“There’s a huge community out there for advice, swaps, chats and that was helpful, because none of my friends were interested,” Edith says.
She’s been involved with Grow it Local – a grassroots community gardening organisation and did an eight-week course on permaculture at a local community centre.
“It changed my life and taught me about environments for insects and bees and the bigger picture like compost”.
Featured Plants:
Tomato – Solanum lycopersicum cv.
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3 Comments
I just had front yard garden, beside the road. While on pandemic, put more container and little raised beds. My plants too enticing, I guess, some pepper/ tomato/ flowers/ potted plants goes missing😥. I can't put enclosure close to aspalt road. I need to find unused plot to garden too. I used to flower seed bomb abandoned land near me😁. Not veggie seed, it need more maintainance.
Nice video👍👍👍👍
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