Community Gardening in Castlemaine

This is the place to find out about community gardening in Castlemaine. This includes seed and plant sharing, planting together, learning from each other, cooking together - anything that brings people together to enjoy their gardens, to grow more food and live more sustainably from backyards large and small. 

What is community gardening? See below.

To be kept up-to-date with community gardening initiatives, send your email address to:

gardenlife3540 @ gmail.com

(please close up the gaps - the spaces are to stop spammers picking up the address from the website).

 

Forthcoming events:

Produce exchange takes place on the first Sunday of every month (farmers' market day), behind the Market Building. Bring surplus veges, jams, baked goods, and of course seeds and seedlings, to swap for things other gardeners bring along.

Ma LETS: Why not join Mount Alexander's LETS scheme? Members use a local 'currency' to offer and obtain goods and services, including but not of course limited to gardening and garden produce. Using the local currency, 'pods', mean you don't have to find someone to do a direct swap. If you need help with your garden, you could find it - while meanwhile earning 'pods' by offering something else to another member of the Ma LETS group. To find out more, come along to one of the Ma LETS 'trading days' which take place at Castlemaine Community House on the third Friday of every month at 5p.m. Or email gardenlife for more information.

Permablitzes are now happening regularly in and around Castlemaine. To join these regular large friendly working parties on different properties, check out: www.castlemainepermablitz.com/
 

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Ideas Brainstormed at a Community Gardening meeting in Castlemaine Community House on 28 June 2009 

Transition Mount Alexander initiated an open meeting, which was attended by 35 people

Community gardening includes: 

• ‘conventional’ community gardens on a public site, with or without grant funding, with people voluntarily doing gardening on their own plot and/or communal plots

• agreeing to use privately owned land for growing food for sharing or selling beyond the immediate owner

• gardening in public spaces – including edible streetscapes and shade trees

• networking to share seeds/surplus food/knowledge and info

• shared meals

• classes and workshops – compost, chooks, cooking etc.

• urban agriculture in courtyards, on the sides and tops of buildings etc.

• gardens with a mix of community input and a commercial component – e.g. sales of local food to local people

• botanical and educational gardens, including food in botanical gardens

• guerrilla gardening

• permablitz (see above)
  

• gleaning and mapping of food sources

• links with farms

• community supported agriculture

• distributing surplus, collecting excess that can’t be used by one person and shares it with others

• support older people to garden, help young people get hands dirty.

• festivals and celebrations

• Landcare-initiated planting and maintaining of trees

• and anything else you can think of!
  

 

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