Growing local

Jane Street Community Garden Flood Update

What an amazing transformation has taken place at the Jane Street Community Garden. Friday , Saturday and Sunday have seen a concerted effort by some of the regular folks whose own homes were not awash, and a veritable army of volunteers, rebuild the garden.

Sincere thanks to everyone who helped to creatre an oasis from the muddy wreck of Jane Street. On Saturday between 50-70 people dropped through including the permablitz crew who also came with food to keep our bodies motoring along.

The sea of eager people has been uplifting. We found young and old, gardeners and novices would turn up at the garden and ask how they could help. Many suggested that it was too much fun to be flood volunteering. Here are examples of just some of the amazing people and their contributions:

Victor and Doyle made 2 prefab beds that are remarkably durable and very sexy, from a huge rectangular delivery box ; Beate, Clytie,and Joanna and a couple from England who missed their garden at home, created garden beds edges from pool table frames; a group of 4 strong guys created an aquatic garden near the bamboo meeting place - something that had been in the pipleline for ages, but now, with extra strong bodies, could be done in a snap. (Can't help thinking how humourous an aquatic garden is given the flood that's just gone through).

Hayley Nyree and Shannon brought mops and brooms, but laid these aside when they saw that they could remake a garden beds and create paths and edges again. They were delighted as were we with their days work. Rolf, Mike, MOnique, Jeff, Damien and many others hauled the mountain of chips and laid fresh paths and carpet over the top of ankle deep mud and knee deep water so didn't have to walk on water; LIsette, Amy, Nadine, Lorraine, Justine, Zoe, Ruby, Tania created edges, trimmed, composted like professionals and made beds look whole again.

And. we had the hydrologists Alec and Narelle drain the 'lake' and dry the land, like the parting of the waters. On the whole it was nothing short of miraculous.

There are still some beds to be cleared and remade, and a terrific amount of replanting to be done.

Jacqui tells me there will be new plots to hire, so if you are in the area you'll be able to grow your own organic food in your own plot come February. That is sure to help buffer the cost of rising fruit and veg prices for you. If you'd like to be part of the garden, give Jacqui and email or better still, call into the garden on Wednesday afternoons or Saturday mornings and join in the fun.

What do they still need?

While i am not a regular at the garden, I have observed that the garden still needs the following to replace or replenishing stocks:

A hammer
A mallet
Horse manure/cow manure
garden gloves
a few tea cups
star pickets
A saw
Good long pieces of solid timber about knee high and 1-3 metres long for bed edges
Two 'people' people who enjoy working with others to make a difference and who'd love to be at the cutting edge of creating food inthis sparklingly new rebuilt garden. (Jacqui would like to step into a gardeners role and seeks a couple of folks who'd enjoy the role of directing the garden into its next exciting phase.)
Two people with artistic abilities or computer skills who would like to share the job of creating posters, newsletter and other artsy creative things for the garden and its volunteers.
Do you love to cook and feed people but not necessarily garden? You could nourish the volunteers with some home-cooked bikkies, sangers or a pot of chai tea.
If you have the yearing to hammer, and build, the garden could benefit from your skills to replace the shade mesh on the meeting place, create a series of bays or bins to store materials like wood, pickets and trellising and design and install garden bed edges.
Are you a wizz bang compost creater? The gardens will need a compost maker to maintain the beds as fertility sources for the garden.
If you have a couple of hours a week or even a day a month, pop in and help to plant new life and grow a flourishing city garden. The garden is revitalised so this is a wonderful time for making a new start.