No space is wasted in this inner city Melbourne front garden.
Crops growing in the garden include tomatoes, beetroot, spring onions and herbs.
I went to Melbourne on Tuesday to catch up with friends I had not seen for ages before going on to Canberra for the Agri-Food Research Network conference which starts next Monday. In the inner city Melbourne suburb of Clifton Hill, just down the road from my friend Gitanjali's place, I found this well-planted little front garden which was looking very healthy and promising. Most houses in this part of town have very little land front or back, and as the front faces a busy road and is not suitable for relaxation - why not make it productive? This was not the only front garden I saw in the area which had some food plants growing. I can't say how recent this development is, or if it represents a major trend, but at least some Melburnians are now rejecting the 'ornamental front/useful back' approach to gardening which has been dominant in both New Zealand and Australia for decades.
Community gardening is a trend which has certainly grown rapidly in both countries in the past decade, wherever suitable sites can be found. I visited the Railway Park community garden in Queanbeyan this morning, and enjoyed a delicious orange and poppy seed muffin baked by my gardening friend Katrina for morning tea for her fellow gardeners, and for the expert on water-saving techniques who came to lead a workshop in the garden. The vacant land beside railway lines has been used for allotment style gardening in Northern Europe for over a century, and it is good to see this resource being utilised Down Under.
Four scenes from the Railway Park Community Garden.
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