Text: Walk On By
Around the inner-city there are a few pockets of neighbours who've decided to create little oasis of serenity. None of them have large outdoor spaces so they've all decided to pool resources and create a communal common garden in front of their houses.
In Chippendale they've famously created a vegetable garden for the neighbourhood on the sidewalks whereas other areas have just created lovely quiet tranquil spaces in the middle of the city. And what's lovely is in these streets you often see the neighbours out, sitting in the sun, reading or drinking a cup of tea, in front of their houses.
It's a sweet, smart and inspiring use of space and it adds something to the wider community. The streets are prettier. There's a sense of shared space. I get pleasure walking down their leafy, flowering welcoming streets as much as I'm sure they get pleasure from living there!
Image: McMorr under this licence.
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01.11.09 — croweater
Hi again!
The use of verges makes a lot of sense - have copied below something I wrote on the topic until running into conflict with the City of Nedlands verge development policy. I have been experimenting with urban food production in Perth for the last 5 years or so The slightly out of date draft i wrote several years ago for an english website is copied below. Will post anothet thing I am working on - The Free lunch is about methods of sustainable food production from waste - it was a launch of these methods at my place.
The Long Paddock.
Two hundred years ago, the south west of Western Australia was covered in towering Eucalypt forest and roamed by Aboriginal people. Gradually trees were cleared for residential development and to allow agriculture and for timber – in fact much of the forest was used in the London Underground Railway.
The clearing occurred over much of Australia and resulted in a network of roads to connect properties and towns. There road reserves included vacant land between the road and fencing along the boundaries of individual farms and were known as the long paddock because when feed was short for livestock, farmers would let their animals out there for a feed. They truly were long paddocks as they started at the front gate and wound all the way across Australia, although no farmer used the whole paddock !!
I was a biodynamic producer in the south west of Western Australia, and just before hay season each year we would cut some of our green pasture for making compost.
I have been living in Perth for a couple of years and setting up compost heaps, worm farms and gardens on the 1000 square meter residential block I am renting – unlike London, much of Perth is known for its large houseblocks.
Perth also has wide road verges that are mainly filled with introduced lawn species that grow quickly in our Mediterranean climate and require fertilising, spraying, watering and mowing. These lawned verges are part of the serious environmental challenges facing Perth like shortage of water and the impact of pollutants and fertilisers in our waterways.
The verges are mainly vacant land under local council tenure and are used only for occasional carparking and council collections of greenwaste and unwanted household goods. I've never seen one of Australia's famous barbeques on these spacious areas.
They are the urban equivalent of the long paddock and represent an under-utilised land resource – our verge is about 80 square meters.
One of the challenges in handling community waste is finding ways to treat it as a resource – with unused land and compostable materials it is not difficult.
It costs $30 to dump a 6' by 4' trailer load of lawn clippings at the local waste transfer station which will then go by truck to a waste management site in the hills 24 km to the east for landfill or composting.
For the community where the lawn clippings are mowed, this has several costs :
1.The fee payable to the transfer station.
2.The downtime from driving to the transfer station for the contractor.
3.The transport of the 'waste' from the transfer station to the waste management site.
4.The loss of a resource which is value added by another community or organisation.
5.Greenhouse gas emissions, road wear and traffic congestion from the transport.
6.Fertilisers, soil conditioners and mulches that could be made from the green waste.
7.Purchase of food and other plants that could be grown in composted clippings.
The only aspect of the local community that benefits from the above is the convenience of residents being able to accept no responsibility for one part of the waste generated by their lifestyle.
There is a state-of-the-art composting plant being constructed at the transfer station by Organic Resources Technology– when operating it will eliminate 3. and reduce 5.
The brief analysis of costs above shows that although this will be a step forward in waste management it may not be the best solution.
Making compost and earthworm farms at home requires a level of commitment that the demands of modern life do not always allow, and there are obvious efficiencies of scale in composting at a handful of sites in the Perth suburban area.
We have been inspired by City Farm (www.menofthetrees.com.au/cityfarm.html ) and have an arrangement with local lawnmowing and garden contractors that they drop off 'green waste' on our verge, where we have allowed it to sheet compost, and added a few worms. We also use it as a resource for compost heaps, worm farms and gardens in our back and front yards.
So far we estimate we have saved about 75 trailer loads or 150 m3 of 'green resource' going to the transfer station and possibly landfill.
Our aim is to demonstrate that this resource can be used on presently under-utilised urban land to grow organic food cost-effectively (eg using volunteers, retired people, work-for-the-dole and prison release labour) for the needy in our society.
One of the major environmental challenges in Western Australia is the introduced plants that have become intrusive weeds – and one of the worst in Perth is the lawn species Couch grass. When we started 'farming the verge' there was Couch present and we laid down several inches of tree mulch with over 1 metre of lawn clippings, hoping this would kill the Couch. The plan was then to plant potatoes as they are a major staple crop and less subject to vandalism as they grow underground.
We had to change plans when the Couch survived and thrived on our organic verge – we have started moving the mulch to worm farms, compost heaps and gardens in the yard, removing the Couch as we do so. Our first garden in the front yard was made by filtering the soil through a sieve made from an old double bed spring base to remove the Couch and has a mixture of peas, beans, silverbeet, tomatoes and parsley for our kitchen. The latest garden bed made from this mulch is a potato bed with a difference – we add more organic material as the plants grow and are building dismantable walls for the bed. When it comes to harvest, we will take away the walls so that the bed collapses and the crop can be easily harvested without damaging the spuds with a garden fork or spade. The collapsed bed will become the base for the next crop in a rotational cropping sequence.
The other aspect of our gardening is growing organic vegetables in pots containing a mixture of soil, compost and worm castings made from materials dumped on the verge and from supermarket vegetable scraps. We have experimented with different amounts of compost and pot sizes for different vegetables. Our aim is to sell organic vegetable seedlings that can be grown on balconies and in courtyards with the only work required being watering and harvest. We source recycled pots from the local Dawson's nursery, benefiting a children's Leukemia Foundation.
So far we are growing Italian parsley, Silverbeet, Bok Choy, Lemon Grass and Broccoli. We also propagate a variety of herbs and flowering plants as these sell for more than vegetables.
Our experiences with verge farming have been interesting – initially the reaction of passers by varied from bemusement to disgust. My partner is Aboriginal, and one group of young lads was heard to call our place a “boongs camp”. Given the impact of many conventional gardens on the natural environment, and the low 'ecological footprint' of Aboriginal lifestyles, we chose to take that as a complement.
As the number and variety of plants in our front yard increased, and because we maintained the country attitude of saying hello to passers by, attitudes changed from bemusement to interest and respect.
17.11.09 — Pool team
Hi croweater! This is a great experiment! I agree with GB- you should definitely post this as an entry in the Live Local group. I wouldn't want anyone to miss out on this.
Cheers,
Lauren, Pool team
01.11.09 — GB
That sounds fantastic - maybe you should make your comment a posting so that others don't miss it in the jungle that is the POOL.
26.10.09 — GB
What a great idea. The creative use of the verge is something I think more people should do. We waste so much land that could be used for making food. One day we may not have a choice - we'll all have to start growing our own food. Get in early I say.