Building a community garden: a StreetAdvisor case study

The residents of Harrison Street, Brunswick East, Victoria, Australia (StreetScore 63.98) are using StreetAdvisor to discuss and plan the creation of a community garden.

Harrison St by babyboo.

These community gardens, where local residents work together to build and tend a vegetable garden, usually on public or vacant land, are popular in many inner suburbs of Australia's big cities, where a European immigrant population that settled in the 1950s and 1960s is mingling with young professionals, often with serious environmental values.

What do Australians of Italian and Greek heritage, now nearing retirement age, and their families have in common with the IT geeks and new urban hippies moving into and gentrifying inner city suburbs like Brunswick?

The answer is an interest in organic gardening, permaculture and sustainability. The Community Gardens website has more information, and one of the best known community gardens in Melbourne is the Veg Out Community Garden, located on the corner of Shakespeare Grove and Chaucer Street in St Kilda.

See also the nearby CERES (the Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies) website. CERES is a community environment project located beside the Merri Creek in Brunswick.

Harrison St by babyboo.

Back in June 2007 babyboo wrote:

"I already have some interest from a couple of guys further up the street but I am wondering if anyone in our street or surrounding streets is interested in the concept of a community garden? I was thinking of the vacant lot at the northern end of the street as a possible space? I am not sure who owns it but it may be the local council as it is too close to the high voltage powerlines to build on...Anyway would love to hear from anyone who is interested."

Discussion has carried on ever since. This is the kind of community discussion and cooperation that StreetAdvisor can help facilitate. We're very keen to see how this project evolves, and we'd love to see some pictures uploaded when the garden is created.