For Gardeners
Below are some resources from incredible gardeners around Brisbane making a difference in the food sovereignty fight!
Blogs & Groups
Your Yard - everything from keeping native bees (including 3D printing of honey super which is just the coolest thing I've ever seen), to productivity tips to get the most from your garden space and breeding snails for food. Just brilliant stuff! The blog is run by Lissa, who you'll also find over at...
The Brisbane Food Ning - a hive of people working on their own gardens and each other's to create local food.
Spur Topia - is the blog of Roman and Jana Spur who are well known around Brisbane for creating a food forest in their rental house. Roman delivers workshops on the many facets of gardening and sustainable living which can be found here.
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Places to Buy
Stingless Beehives at Bee Yourself! One of the downsides of being a renter and a rabid bee fan is that I can't keep a bee hive - it wouldn't be fair to the bees moving them around year to year. But if you're pretty settled and have time to do things like split hives when they become too massive - here's a place you can get your native bees (as well as literature on bee keeping)!
For natives, especially flowering and fruiting varieties, I'm a huge fan of Fairhill Native Plants and Botanic Gardens at the Sunshine Coast - it's a beautiful place to visit just for a coffee amongst the incredibly diverse bush. It has a huge variety of grevillias, and also has a small but very helpful bookstore where you can grab pamphlets on such intricate gardening topics as how to grow and strike natives. Visit in Spring, you won't be disappointed!
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The Humus of LifeSo if you're a young gardener who's just starting out, you may have missed out on the permaculture movement which I experienced as a kid in the early 90s. If this is the case, you may not know about the wonders of humus (or homemade organic linseed slice, but that's another story for another time). And no, it's not that stuff that's made of chickpeas and lemon juice you numpty, it's the lifeblood of your soil! If you're trying to grow anything from veg to flowers, humus is what will keep your soil sustainable and alive! Humus is the result of the breakdown of organic material by those lovely little worms and micro-organisms who live in soil, and it helps to hold nutrients and water in soil, which is good news for your plants! If you aren't replenishing the organic matter in your soil, then you'll end up working with dead soil and wonder why all your loverley vegies have suddenly turned the colour of poo and died. Whatever you do, if this happens, do not tip a bunch of chemicals onto your soil, because it's much healthier (for you and the little wormies and micro-organisms) if you simply add organic matter back into the soil. This can be leaf rakings (if anyone still rakes their lawn. I do, but only because I have a tree who likes to shake itself like a wet dog over my tiny patch of garden), or cow or chicken poo, coffee grounds, and the best one COMPOST!
Compost is the Zeus of gardening. Compost goes around, fertilising everything and its dog as though it were the...well, the father of the Gods...that metaphor worked better in my head...
I have a weensy garden (because, after all, this is Brisbane, and we're all pressed for space), and a weensy kitchen, and an even weensier gap between my house and the next, so a big old compost bin wasn't really an option for me (more's the pity...there's nothing more exciting than pitchforking around in a pile of rotting vegetable peelings and hay...and if you think I'm being facetious, you haven't tried this activity!). So I got myself a Bokashi bin from Biome, trained my housemates to throw their foodscraps (meat, paper, everything) into it, threw some of the weird magical powder that comes with it on top and shut the lid. Bob's your Uncle, the thing spits out humus juice! From a tap! There's not a lot of hands on, which suits most people just dandy! and you stick the nice fermented juice in with a bit of water, and water humus right back into the garden! When the bin fills up, you can dig all the goodness into your vege patch when it's time for a replanting...genius, no?
Happy gardening. xo
(References: Better Homes and Gardens Organic Gardening, by Roger Mann, Murdoch Books, 2007)
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For Gardeners without gardens
Community garden are a wonderful way to get your hands in the dirt and on some vegies if you live in an apartment or high rise or just have crappy soil.
You can find all of the community gardens on the Brisbane City Council website & below:
List of community gardens
| Suburb | Address |
|---|---|
| Acacia Ridge | Acacia Ridge Community Garden 21 Hanify Street Phone Community Development Officer: 07 3277 4893 |
| Bald Hills | Bald Hills State School Bush Tucker Garden 2156 Gympie Road Phone Lousie Brennan: 07 3261 1554 |
| Banyo | Banyo Community Garden 37 Hilltop Place Email Linda Read: Banyo Community Garden |
| Brighton | Nashville State School - Garden of Promise 186 Baskerville Street Phone Sue-Anne Sheppard: 07 3869 7333 |
| Bulimba | Bulimba State School 261 Oxford Street Phone Philip Young: 07 3395 6666 |
| Carina | Carina PCYC 27 Narracott Street Email Stacey: Carina PCYC |
| Carindale | Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee 1358-1368 Old Cleveland Road Email Sue Akeroyd: Bulimba Creek Catchment Coordinating Committee |
| Chermside | Burnie Brae, Kuran Street Community Garden 60 Kuran Street Phone Jenny Vernez: 07 3624 2103 |
| Chermside West | Crossroads Community Garden 91 Maundrell Terrace Phone Peter Bill: 07 3256 4466 |
| Coorparoo | Coorparoo Community Garden 15 York Street Email Yvonne: Coorparoo Community Garden |
| Deagon | Green P Community Garden (PCYC) 106 Kempster Road Phone Mike or Meg: 07 3269 9046 or 0413 119 956 or email: Green P Community Garden |
| East Brisbane | The Pocket Community Garden Corner Preston Street and Maynard Street Email Clytie: The Pocket Community Garden |
| Geebung | Delaware Street Community Gardens 46 Delaware Street Phone Matt: 07 3633 0204 or email: Delaware Street Community Gardens |
| Geebung Special School 69 Buhot Street East Phone Peter Blatch: 07 3632 1777 | |
| Graceville | Graceville/Sherwood Community Garden 79 Waratah Avenue Email Garth Stephens: Graceville/Sherwood Community Garden |
| Highgate Hill | Paradise Street Community Garden 33 Paradise Street Phone the Spiral Community Hub: 07 3844 7733 |
| Holland Park | Seville Road State School Food Forest 86 Roscoe Street Phone Jenny Watson: 07 3347 6111 |
| Holland Park West | Mt Gravatt West Special School 49 Nursery Road Phone Tanya Michel: 07 3308 6333 |
| Inala | Inala Community Garden (Spiritus Early Parent Centre) 105 Poinsettia Street Phone Bernadette Pitman: 07 3723 6633 |
| Kelvin Grove | Kelvin Grove Community Garden 48 Blamey Street Phone Helen Strait: 0427 599 106 or email: Kelvin Grove Community Garden |
| Kenmore | Kenmore South State School 16 Kersley Road Phone Scott Curtis: 07 3327 0888 |
| Lota | Bethania Street Community Garden 38 Bethania Street Phone: 0401 462 000 or email: Wynnum Manly Community Garden |
| Mansfield | Mansfield State School 174 Ham Road Phone Leanne Ford: 07 3421 3888 |
| Moorooka | Koala Park Community Garden 108 Vandal Avenue Phone Josh Griffiths: 07 3342 4356 or email: Koala Park Community Garden |
| Moorooka State School 282 Beaudesert Road Phone Kerry Powell: 07 3426 5333 | |
| Morningside | Morningside Beelarong Community Farm (York Street Park) Corner York Street and Beverley Street Email: Morningside Beelarong Community Farm |
| Morningside State School 67 Pashen Street Phone Stephanie Cavernett: 07 3908 2333 | |
| New Farm | New Farm State School 189 Heal Street Phone Virginia O'Neill: 07 3358 7333 |
| Norman Park | Norman Park State School 78 Agnew Street Phone Mary Stuhmcke: 07 3399 2777 |
| Pullenvale | Brisbane Independent School 2447 Mogill Road Phone Michelle Bland or Angel Waters: 07 3378 5466 |
| Runcorn | Kyabra Community Garden Kyabra Street Phone John: 0412 058 701 or email: Kyabara Community Garden |
| Runcorn Heights State School 202 Nemies Road Phone Doug Seib: 07 3711 8333 | |
| Sandgate | Sandbag Community Garden 153 Rainbow Street Phone Paula Eveans: 07 3869 3244 |
| Seventeen Mile Rocks | Rocks Riverside Park Community Garden 5 Counihan Road (via Jamboree Ward Office) Phone Ed Parker: 07 3407 7000 |
| South Brisbane | St Mary's Community Orchard 20 Merivale Street Phone Jonathon Gregory: 0421 797 270 |
| Stafford | St Clements Church Garden 14 Eudunda Street Phone Mary Florence, Carol Defries or Linda Maher: 07 3356 4300 |
| Sunnybank | Sunnybank State High School 96 Turton Street Phone Gregory Bergel: 07 3323 8111 |
| The Gap | Balaangala Indigenous Food, Craft and Medicinal Garden 98 Yoorala Street Email Michelle Peile: Balaangala Indigenous Food Garden |
| Yoorala Street Community Garden 98 Yoorala Street Email Colin Peile: Yoorala Street Community Garden | |
| Toowong | Vera Street Community Garden 78 Bywong Street (access via Vera Street) Phone Naomi Waldron: 0427 184 993 |
| Upper Brookfield | Upper Brookfield State School 496 Upper Brookfield Road Phone Julie Williams: 0403 952 930 |
| Upper Mt Gravatt | Grow for Life - Abbeville Street Community Garden 41 Abbeville Street Email Max Van Vught: Abbeville Street Community Garden |
| West End | Jane Street Community Garden Davies Park, Jane Street Phone: 0432 178 352 or email Jane Street Community Garden |
| Windsor | Northey Street City Farm - Northey Street Park 54 Northey Street Phone Emma Davey: 07 3857 8775 |
| Wooloowin | Kedron State High School 34 Park Road Phone Chrissie Coogan: 07 3630 3344 |
| Zillmere | Zillmere State School 70 Murphy Road Phone Janet Bannah: 07 3863 8333 |
