STROLL along North Wharf in Docklands, among the towering apartment blocks, and at the end of the wharf you’ll come across the precinct’s best kept secret. In the midst of the concrete surrounds, near the far end of the wharf, an oasis of greenery has been created, an open garden with a profusion of ready-to-pick herbs, vegetables, and flowers. It is a community garden, the first to be introduced to Docklands….. The community garden was established as a trial after Monash University student Emily Ballantyne-Brodie approached Docklands’ developers Vic Urban and Lend Lease with a proposal. They gave the space, while the Environment Protection Agency funded the plants and garden supplies.

”Our ecological footprint per person in Australia is 50 per cent based around food, the water used in production and the travel involved in getting it to the city,” Ballantyne-Brodie says. Her concept is for the creation of a community hub, eventually on a permanent site, that will combine sustainability ventures. It already includes an eco-shop selling garden supplies in nearby Merchant Street, where classes are run on establishing balcony and rooftop gardens,  harvesting grey water and rainwater, organic gardening and permaculture design, and sustainable cooking.

Ballantyne-Brodie, 26, is studying for a master’s degree in environment and sustainability. She spent two years researching the idea of urban agriculture and community design at Italy’s Politecnico Di Milano.

Her passion for the project derives from her experience growing up at Upper Beaconsfield ”with a vegie patch and chickens”. The community garden has proved an enormous success with residents of Docklands, she says. She has been helped by a team of volunteers, including landscapers.

Violet Town plaque

State of Design Festival at Violet Town Saturday 24th July 11am – 4pm*

Join us and see what is happening design wise in a small country town.

For less than the cost of the local produce in your lunch, come along and learn more about the changes underway through a walking tour of retrofitted community buildings, solar houses, creek revegetation, community forest and Murrong permaculture development.

Stops along the walking tour include:

The energy efficiency retrofit of a 1970s Community Complex and the Early Childhood Centre in Violet Town demonstrates a great range of appropriate strategies to improve the way this building works.

HREP is a community powered restoration and design project for the Honeysuckle Creek and environs.

The Violet Town Community Forest, planted in 2006, is designed as an example of analogue forestry, to mimic the structure and functions of natural forest, while giving amenity, habitat, and future wood product yields.

Murrnong is designed as a permaculture community subdivision, with an established tree crop agriculture to provide for residents and local community.

Timing suits V-Line timetable from Melbourne.

Cost $10 adult – $5 child (under 16) Lunch included.

Pre-register by phoning 5798 1735 or email rplandvogt@gmail.com

LOCATION: Community Complex, Cowslip Street, Violet Town
CONTACT NAME: Rob Landvogt PHONE: 5798 1735
EMAIL: rplandvogt@gmail.com
WEB: www.violettown.org.au
http://vtecoliving.blogspot.com

Enter at gate 2, (the main gate) then follow signs down to grafting shed.

• Watch grafting demonstrations by Pete the Permie and others.
• There will be tours of the orchard
• Dress appropriately, sturdy shoes etc.
• Bring lunch and drinks, there is hot water on-site.

For further information, contact Richard Hawkey: 0428 329 450

To see a map, click here

For more information about Werribbee Park Heritage Orchard or to subscribe to the WPHO newsletter, visit http://www.my-book-cafe.com/newsletter.html

letter re council meeting 20 july 2010

Saturday July 17th – 11:00am @ Ilma Lever, 2a Station St Coburg (along the train tracks just after Moreland rd) with Elspeth Brock

Learn how to use permaculture design to keep water in the landscape and techniques to hold water in the soil. What kinds of plants to plant and how to easily identify them. Which food plants will grow well in dry areas?

There is a cosy shed so the workshop will go on regardless of the weather, and established a gardens with lots of great planting examples.

Who: Elspeth Brock will be running the workshop’s she has experience in native landscape regeneration, community horticulture and permaculture design. She recently traveled to Morocco to work on a permaculture project there.

RSVP by email to Elspeth.

© Merri Corner Community Garden 2010

Working Bee

Activities for the day include;

• Further preparation of the tank base – sand levelling
• Digging through the mushroom compost to the plot areas
• Planting the lucerne, broad bean and snowpea crop

Don’t forget your shovel or rake!

We’ll be there from 10am til 4pm, this Saturday 17th July – Garden the whole day away or attend the Water Wise Workshop in the morning then come to the garden in the afternoon!

http://www.merricorner.org/

The report was to be addressed by Council at its general meeting earlier this month. But we understand it has been postponed, we think until July.

POW is concerned that a commercially run community service on the site would require substantial development on the site and would be against the spirit of Council’s decision to keep the land for the community and we have been urging our members and supporters to write to the Councilors expressing their views.

Please be aware however, that the Councilors did not request this report. It has been put before them by the officers, for reasons not fully understood by POW. At this stage, therefore, we have no reason to suspect the Councilors are backing away from their earlier decision.

We will keep you posted about Council’s decision

Dear Mayor Sanli,

Re: Support for establishment of a community garden at the Maidstone Hall site.

I am writing to you to express my strong support for retaining the Maidstone Hall site in the hands of the community, and to support the proposal for a community garden and demonstration sustainability centre.

Community gardens bring great benefit to individuals, communities and neighbourhoods. They provide much needed open space ? an asset becoming increasingly important with a growing population and density. Community gardens also have positive health and social wellbeing outcomes through providing fresh produce, but also a source of physical activity, a site for social and community activities, and provides many educational opportunities. Health and social wellbeing outcomes are of great priority with many health concerns and social exclusion evident in our communities. The best part of community gardens is that they are open to participation for the whole of the community.

There are many examples across Victoria, Australia and the world demonstrating successful community garden projects undertaken in partnership with local councils, and the many benefits that have resulted. These include at Ringwood, St Kilda, CERES on the Merri Creek and many more.

I encourage you to support the proposal for a community garden and demonstration sustainability centre for the Maidstone Hall site.

Yours Sincerely

Colleen Hartland

St Kilda Community gardens

Please RSVP to info@pow.org.au

In it, it announces a new $10 million two and half year study. This study and all that follows is conducted under the Major Transport Projects Facilitation Act, introduced in Victoria in 2009. It is administered by the Minister of Planning, the Honourable Justin Madden (he’s the one that’s been in the news recently over his staff suggesting they fake a community consultation).

Westlink will affect the communities of Seddon, Footscray, West Footscray and Sunshine West. One of the key elements is a road tunnel between the Port of Melbourne and Sunshine Road running under the Maribyrnong River and the communities of Seddon and Footscray. The key reasons for building Westlink are:

• to cater for an additional 350,000 people moving into the west over the next 15 years (i.e. more cars);
• reduce pressure on the Westgate Bridge (i.e. more cars and trucks);
• to improve freight access to the Port of Melbourne (i.e. more trucks)

The newsletter introduces us to a “Social Impact Assessment” team leader Ruth Davies (see here for Ruth’s LinkedIn profile) and to two new advisory groups (you can see why is costs $10 million) to help with the communication with the community, and vitally, to get the community’s input. There’s even talk of 2 way communication. There’s a online community survey (click here and select the Community Survey picture on the right hand side)

Of concern is that there’s not one mention of health issues. There is a link between ultrafine particles (a form of particulate matter prevalent in truck and car exhausts) and the following:

• Individuals with respiratory disease (e.g., Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, acute bronchitis) and cardiovascular disease (e.g., ischemic heart disease) are at greater risk of premature mortality and hospitalisation.
• Individuals with infectious respiratory disease (e.g., pneumonia) are at greater risk of premature mortality and morbidity (e.g., hospitalisation, aggravation of respiratory symptoms). Also, exposure to particulate matter may increase individual susceptibility to respiratory infections.
• Elderly individuals are also at greater risk of premature mortality and hospitalisation for cardiopulmonary causes.
• Children are at greater risk of increased respiratory symptoms and decreased lung function.
• Asthmatic children and adults are at risk of exacerbation of symptoms and increased need for medical attention.

These findings where documented in a federal government literature review of  published studies from around the world- it’s just over 300 pages – click here.

Have a read and start thinking about what the future developments will mean for our communities. We live in safe Labor seats; Labor is the party in power at the state and council level. Go and fill in the online survey, start talking to your neighbours and to your local council member, to your state level representative. We need to make sure that our air, our soil, our environment is not in a worse condition for all of us.