Community Gardens Visited and Observed: Veggie Village in Peregian Beach
Community gardens are a very valuable demonstration of how a community can grow its own food, provide its own power, harvest its own water from roofs and build appropriate buildings and infrastructure. They are a wonderful element in the community and permaculture people all over the world should support community gardens in all their forms.
An interesting observation is that often a community has already used all of the most valuable land by the time the population has grown to a stage where it requires or requests that a community garden be installed. Therefore often a community garden is given land that is not valuable for the local real estate market but can be surrounded by local real estate development. It has become a regularly repeated phenomenon that land given for the installation and development of community gardens is flood prone and generally a poor landscape. There is therefore quite an emphasis on raised garden beds, this is something we have observed as we visited different community gardens around the world and in Australia.
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The community garden featured in this article is called Veggie Village in Peregian Beach on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. It is a wonderful example of what can happen when people get together to create a working example of a way in which we can live more sustainably. They have used the garden for community bonding, each person sharing a common purpose and goal.
These local systems are so valuable for extending living elements of diversity that are of value, and the appropriate technology and infrastructure can be replicated within the broader community.
Permaculture has always supported community gardens and we will continue to do so, we will report on the community gardens we visit around the world. Stay tuned….
Further Reading:
More pictures from Veggie Village, Peregian Beach:
What a fantastic setup. Congratulations to all concerned.
Beautiful garden! Well done! I have the beginnings of plans to get a community garden started in the inner suburbs Brisbane, but am a little overwhelmed with what to do in which order (i.e. ring my local council? communicate the idea with local residents? via letter drop? hold a meeting?)Any suggestions on what got the ball rolling for you would be really helpful! Again – great work on setting this up.
Luv the organised chaos – is that a wicking bed I see? Really expressive, you can see just how diverse this garden is-wonderful input from the makers. So totally productive. An absolute credit to all – perhaps a field trip from one Coast to the other might be in order..
Laura if you need a hand,please contact Permaculture Gold Coast they are more than happy to give you a hand,and have a good systems as well as experience in setting these types of gardens up.Or check them out on the WPN network.
Email is permaculturegc(at)gmail.com or join the Face Book site Permaculture Gold Coast.
Good Luck with it
Fernando
Shoukran Jiddan Chris. Tears came to our eyes with laughters but we feared for the younger man with the wheelbarrow.
Hope to eat the fruit of your labor of love when we come over.
Alf alf mabrouk
So beautiful, this is something every community should have.
I see the use of recycled sleepers for the raised beds.
I’m interested in opinions regarding the past use of preservatives for this kind of timber and herbicide sprays used on railways when the sleepers were originally ‘in situ’.
This great and I know doing some like this would be enjoyable to everyone I love the garden
Hi we are wanting to do a community garden at our new community centre in Currumbin ..i fyou can help or know anyone who would like to help pls call me on 0434671101..we have a small back yard we can use next to our cafe and we would like to make this community friendly and unique that all may enjoy…0434671101