Community gardens are about more than just flexing your green thumb, they’re bringing communities together. Amy Yang reports.

The Warners Bay Community Garden. Image: Courtesy of the Warners Bay Community Group

In the City of Sydney metropolitan area, there are fourteen community gardens and this number is growing.

Those which were established independently are inspiring others in the area, such as in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs of Waverley and Wollahra. On the other hand, a number of other community gardens have also been developed on social housing land.

Carmen Eastlake says the Warners Bay community garden group in Lake Macquarie City is the best thing since sliced bread.

The 72-year-old mother of two who divorced her husband twenty years ago is now having the time of her life.

“A lot of women don’t like this part of their lives because they’re getting old, and wrinkly and sick, but I’m quite happy because I’ve got free choice, I’ve got freedom.

“I can make all my own decisions you know, which I couldn’t for forty years and having met up with all these people, it’s exciting this time of my life. All we need is a garden,” said Eastlake.

The Warners Bay Community Garden group met for the first time two years ago on a Sunday in a children’s playground.

Organisers, Ben Henley and his partner Shelley provided afternoon tea as a handful of locals showed an interest in gardening but more so, in meeting people and making friends.

“We did the letter box drop to let people know that we were trying to start a community garden and people just came out of the woodwork and we’ve got over three hundred people now.” says Eastlake.

Eastlake says being in a community garden group is a big help for many people.

“I haven’t seen Barry today but he had a stroke a long time ago and he has one arm that doesn’t work properly but he’s in the community garden and we’ll find something for him to do so that he feels a bit needed.”

Despite the battle for local council approval of a plot of land in Bunya Park, organiser Ben Henley says the enthusiasm of the group has been infectious.

“People see something in it for them, and you do need something in it for yourself as well as giving otherwise you’re not going to get involved, I think people like that. They see the positive energy, and they see the lovely people and the friendships created, and they’re just drawn to it.”

Henley says in the end, it’s not so much about gardening but striking up a conversation.

“This thing is going to go across the world, this revolution of growing your own things in your own backyard, and the community garden is part of a social revolution.”

Russ Grayson of Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network says in the last three to four years, the popularity of community gardens has accelerated tremendously.

He partners this success with the local and organic food movement. But sees benefits beyond cultivating an interest in food and learning about what goes into it.

Grayson conducted some research regarding policy direction for Marrickville council in Sydney’s Inner west.

In his results, he found that community gardens were popular amongst young families; offered a sense of place, co-operation and friendship; and encouraged individuals to engage in civil society in a fulfilling way.

Community gardens began in Sydney in 1986 as ad hoc projects, and since then have become more professional proposals for neighbourhood renewal.

“The main difference today is that they are now seen as valid urban land use.

“Now it’s becoming more institutionalised and councils are asking for plans of management and how people make decisions; how they will resolve conflict; how they will recruit new members and how they will communicate,” Grayson says.

According to Grayson, In effect this means that gardeners are offered a platform to represent themselves with credibility and professionalism and not just a bunch of people with an idea.