Yarraville Community Garden Consultation

You may have received a flyer in the mail from council asking for your opinion on a community garden in Yarraville.

Lots of people have asked what the Good Seed's opinion is so here is a some snippets of our submission to council:

• The Good Seeds preferred site out of the three options presented by MCC is McNish Reserve. The site is ideal to establish a flagship community garden for the southern section of Maribyrnong LGA. The site is highly accessible with two sections of its perimeter being non-residential. A community garden at McNish would enhance the social fabric of the local community by activating the site and increasing its visual amenity to what is currently an under-utilised space.  The large size of the site means that many individuals and community groups could benefit from the development of a community hub and garden. The size of the site would also enable the delivery of local community events, workshops, gatherings and farmers market. As such McNish Reserve has the potential to be a very inclusive community hub. The site also has a sunny aspect enabling the potential for great food production.

• Manallack Reserve is within ~350 m of the Victoria University Urban Living and Learning Hub which has an established orchard, shared food growing areas and individual plots. This site currently has community involvement in the form of volunteers and has capacity for increased future involvement. We feel that Manallack Reserve would exclusively serve its local community but would not have the capacity for a flagship garden.  This is because the site doesn’t have the potential to accommodate activities that would attract community involvement from further afield including; a playground, market and workshops.

• The features and activities that The Goods Seeds believe would make a community garden successful include:

·                           -Food and green waste management systems such as community composting.

·                            Sandpit or playground

·                           Work with Cruickshank Park to create a central playground (if McNish Reserve).

·                           Permaculture and organic principles

·                          Mix of individual shared plots

·                           Education, workshops and example productive back yard

·                          Food swaps and CSA

·                         ‘Food For All’ beds for donations

·                          Heritage varieties

·                          Seed saving

·                          Multicultural

·                          Perma-playgroups

·                          Seating

·                        Artistic features

·                        Pop up activities

·                         Disabled access

·                         Children’s garden

The Good Seeds x