A new Community Garden for the Inner West is taking shape in a hidden corner of Footscray. The Footscray Community Garden and Learning Place – a joint project of Borderlands Cooperative and St John’s Anglican Church – aims to make a difference by being different.
Borderlands Cooperative focuses on community research and development projects and saw an opportunity to revitalise the garden right on their doorstep, in the grounds of St John’s Anglican Church on Pickett Street, Footscray.
Marie Brennan, chair of Borderlands, sees the project as a place where a community struggling to build connections across cultures and generations can come together.
Borderlands’ Coordinator Jorge Jorquera says they wanted the garden to be set up and run as a collective effort, focussing on helping alleviate food insecurity. “Most community gardens rent plots to individuals or families, whereas we wanted to bring people together to grow food to help meet community needs,” he says.
A grant from the West Gate Neighbourhood Fund will pay for materials, while Borderlands has invested in a project manager to get things moving. But a successful community garden stands or falls on its volunteers. The response from the community has been excellent. A series of working bees began in September 2024. By mid-November, the garden sent the first crates of produce to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
‘Our dedicated Establishment Committee and our volunteers have made it happen,’ says Mr Jorquera.
The first task was to renovate the existing beds. Converting them to ‘wicking beds’ reduces the need for watering while ensuring a consistent supply to the veggies. But that means they had to be emptied, lined, and a reservoir of aggregate laid, before they could be re-filled with soil and organic matter. This presented the first opportunity to focus on the ‘Learning Place’ part of the project with more than 20 people attending a workshop to learn how wicking beds work and how to construct them.
Meanwhile, a greenhouse has started to come together and compost bays have been installed, the latter providing another community education opportunity as part of the National Sustainability Festival. And all the while, zucchini, cucumber, silver beet, peas, daikon, beans and now tomatoes and eggplant have been going to people experiencing food insecurity.
‘This project is about creating a community garden, but I’ve realised we’ve also been creating a garden community,’ says Jorge. ‘We’ve had volunteers from eight years old to 87, from expert horticulturalists to beginners like myself. There’s something about working side by side with people on a project like this that just feels good for the soul.’
Footscray Community Garden and Learning Place wants as many people as possible to get involved: no gardening experience required! They’ve invested in heavy duty composting bays so they can be a composting hub for those living in local apartment blocks. They want to create a peaceful place where people find connection and can care for their mental health, where they can learn or share the skills of composting waste, raising seedlings and growing food. Outdoor furniture will enable community groups to use the space. And, because this is a collective project, the expectation is that it will continue to evolve as it responds to community input.
Footscray Community Garden and Learning Place runs regular working bees and is aiming to increase the opening times as more volunteers join. To get involved, find them on Facebook or Instagram, check the FCGLP website https://footscraycommunitygarden.net/ or you can email garden@borderlandscooperative.net
