Grab a shovel, go out to the verge in front of your house, and dig it up. That’s right, turn that earth, plant some vegies in there, and watch food grow before your very eyes.

I did exactly that and you wouldn’t believe the results. Vegies are just some of them.

‘After (a month)’

The other, even more brilliant thing, is that I’ve met some great people who live around me who’ve pitched in and helped get it to where it is. We now have over 30 in our little collective. Every time I’m pottering around out there some passer-by comes up and says “I just wanted to tell you you how great it is you’re doing that.”

Here’s the before and during shots:

‘Before’

‘During’

I’ve felt a sense of community, which really is an amazing thing to strike in Sydney. (Not normally one of the city’s strong points.) And of course there are all those other benefits – like the joy of picking your own stuff to eat, getting your hands dirty, showing the local kids where food comes from, saving on food miles, peak oil and all that. In fact those clever Permaculture people were advocating we do this long ago.

Audio:
You can hear my interview with David Holmgren, one of the original proponents of Permaculture, here. He reckons its quite possible for Sydney to grow all its own food here where we live (except for broadacre things – like wheat.)

Articles:
In amazing recent turn of events, Britain’s National Trust have pledged to hand over stately home land for people to grow their own vegies. (Recent story from The Independent.) And here’s an article from the Herald last year: Green solution just outside your door.

Useful links:
Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network
Sydney City Farm (brilliant new plan for a farm in the city)
Food for the Future Fair (a celebration of urban food growing which inspired us)

Anyway, what are you waiting for?

p.s. Next project on the agenda is to do a tour of community vegie patches round Sydney. Suggestions of where to go are welcome.

Special thanks to Barbara, my neighbour. It wouldn’t have happened without your hard work and ‘yes we can’ attitude.

The proposal draws ideas from successful farms that have ready been established in places like Melbourne and London. And the site is a beautiful location right on the harbour and in the grounds of the now abandoned mental hospital.

It all sounds good, apart from the fact that the Sydney Harbour Foreshore Authority have not included the farm in their plans for the whole site and a final decision is going to be made on its future use soon.

Audio podcast
In this interview I speak with Rod Simpson and Andrew Jackson from Sydney City Farm. Andrew is the head of this non-profit organisation and Rod is the architect and designer behind the plan. You can listen here to the Sydney City Farm interview. It starts with Rod Simpson.

How to support the Sydney City Farm
If you think the farm is a good idea, there’s a couple of things you can do. Join the mailing list at www.sydneycityfarm.org and write to the New South Wales Planning Minister and to the Vice Chancellor of Sydney Uni to ask them to include the farm in their plans.

More info on Sydney City Farm
More on the farm in this article from the Sydney Morning Herald.

Do your own thing
If you want to join or start a community garden where you live, check out the Australian City Farms and Community Gardens Network.

Josh reckons people have seen the light and are now using their backyards to grow food. In this interview, he talks about how to go about grow your own, making your garden sustainable and the role of permaculture in his work. Listen to the Josh Byrne Green Gardener interview.

I caught up with Josh at the Australian Permaculture Convergence.

It combines traditional farming techniques and thinking about nature with modern technology to enable people to live differently to how most of us live. To live in a truly sustainable way.

In this interview, I tracked down David Holmgren, the co-originator of permaculture, at the conference.

Interestingly, having originally developed the idea in response to the oil crisis of the 70’s, David reckons permaculture is the answer to our looming energy crisis. With peak oil, permaculture is more relevant than ever.

More on permaculture on David’s site.