The people of the Blue Mountains recently had the opportunity to have our say about the Council’s policies on Community Gardens. I’ve been volunteering on Fridays at the oldest community garden in the area for a couple of years now. For the first of those two years, I had to get on a train for an hour, followed by a 20 minute walk to have access to a community garden in the mountains, as that was the easiest one to get to. That lengthy trek is one of the reasons behind my motivation to work on a submission to council on how we, the gardeners, the permaculture designers and practitioners and council workers, the people of the mountains can work together to make sure we provide better access to community gardens for all. We already know why we should do this, although some gentle reminders never hurt. While the idea was simple and came in at under a page, the recommendations became fairly lengthy at 6 pages, so get a cup of tea and have a read. As we say in the submission this is only part of the discussion, not the last word, so have a think about what you’d like to see from community gardens. Quite a bit of reference is made to the recently adopted City of Sydney Community Gardens policy in this submission, and the reason for this is that its a really comprehensive well thought out community garden enabling policy. There is a growing movement in Australia and around the world to understanding the value in our society of active multifunction community spaces. Community gardens are a great resource for everyone, so let’s get behind them. The date has passed for giving feedback to council on this policy but the dialogue is ongoing. Feel free to have your say here by leaving a comment, come to the community gardens that already exist, or talk to your local councillors about the provision of community gardens in your area. Information is patchy about what community gardens exist where, and I know the council’s list is different from the ones I know about so, If you’re part of a community garden in the Blue Mountains please let me know about it by posting a comment here or on the Blue Mountains Community Gardens Website
Read the PBM_Community_Gardens_Policy_Submission
Find out more about North Katoomba Organic Community Garden, Permaculture Blue Mountains
Katska 