By Mikayla van Loon
When some passionate garden growers from Mooroolbark began meeting regularly last year, the vision of an established community garden seemed years away.
But as connections formed and passion spread, the group, known as the Mooroolbark Community Garden, grew into a fully incorporated association in just under a year.
“It first started in March last year and that was just four of us sitting in a cafe over a cup of coffee having a chat,” president Helen vander-Heyden said.
“Within three months it was a whole lot of people coming to meetings at the library and it just escalated from there.”
Now the group has a committee and at least 15 members attending regular monthly meetings at Mooroolbark Library, with many more following the journey on social media.
With a vision of becoming a communal hub for everyone to get involved in, this recent step of incorporation inches closer to gaining land and establishing a garden.
“We’re hoping to create a hub where people can come, sit and chat or learn about gardening by being hands on with people who are happy to instruct in a polite, general way,” Helen said.
Following the motto of ‘cultivating community and companionship’, Helen said the group hopes to establish connections with local retirement homes, kindergartens or schools and with multicultural communities, like the Chin community and First Nations People.
“We want to learn from all the different cultures about different ways of growing vegetables that some of us have no idea about and how to prepare them, what they do and how it’s done.
“There’s a lot of retirees and retirement villages around. We’d love them to come down and have a chat [because they’re] a whole group of food growing people who have all the knowledge in their heads, they may not be able to do it anymore but for them to come out and have a cup of tea with us and teach us what they know would be [wonderful].”
Vice president Claire Coutts said throughout the pandemic, lots of people learnt the importance of community and connection with others because of the isolation enforced.
“One thing Covid brought up was there were a lot of people who were unable to get any food and they were isolated because they couldn’t connect with anybody except to go for a walk,” she said.
“So to go for a walk to a community garden if it was there, if something happened again, you can pick herbs, eventually you might be able to pick fruit and it’s there to encourage people to get out and mingle with the community.”
Not only does a community garden have social benefits, secretary Steve Costello said the added benefits of getting out into nature in an urban setting, as well as potentially easing the pressures of living can only improve quality of life for Mooroolbark residents.
“[With] all of these places going up, essentially with no yards, no green space, communal gardens, whether they be parks, playgrounds, or communal growing spaces are just going to be more and more important,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter if one parent is working or if there are two parents both working, there are plenty of people where their mortgages have gone through the roof or they’re rent has gone through the roof and they’re not sure how they’re going to do the shopping next week.
“If we can have a vibrant community greenspace producing a significant amount of food, you hope that we might be able to do something about food insecurity as well.”
Having already been in contact with Yarra Ranges Council, Helen, Steve and Claire said the response so far has been positive, leaving them hopeful about the possibility of securing land or an allotment in the near future.
The next stage of the process includes fundraising, grant applications and formalising a land application for the council.
“Everybody is welcome. We don’t care how old you are, how young you are. This is the place where everybody is welcome,” Steve said.
“The more the merrier and we just really encourage everyone to get in touch and help us demonstrate a need for this project in Mooroolbark.”
To learn more about the project, find Mooroolbark Community Garden on Facebook or express your interest by emailing mooroolbarkocg@gmail.com
The group will also be hosting a stall at the Celebrate Mooroolbark Festival offering the community a chance to chat, buy homegrown plants and learn about the project.
