Garden grows beyond just a food space

WITH one year passed since a small team of people volunteered to revive Shelford’s community garden, the space has been revived with more developments on the way.

Carol Cations was one of a handful of locals who elected to undertake the job of overhauling the site and clearing away rampant weeds following a community planning meeting by the Shelford Progress Association.

Since then, the grounds have become home to produce like lettuce, fruit trees, pumpkins, and but Ms Cations said the aim of the project goes beyond garden offerings.

“We’re setting it up as a place that people can just come down and enjoy and use whether they want to come sit, contribute, or whatever,” she said.

“This is about the community coming together and having the space to maintain that everyone takes responsibility for.

“We want people to see the potential of this and have it be an attractive place, not an overgrown weed space wiped out by the floods.”

Though the site isn’t yet seeing regular use from community groups, the revival team have been supported with the locals helping to deliver a worm farm, gardening shed, and composting bins, with some garden tools donated.

Following several grants from Golden Plains Shire, as well as funding by the Progress Association, the garden is set to be developed even further.

“We just recently got one of Golden Plains Shire’s Community Strengthening grants of just under $2000 to reinstate all the fencing and to put some raised garden beds in and other bits and pieces,” Ms Cations said.

“We also received $2000 from the Shire which will divide the space into two sections. The front’s what we’ve been working on but the money will be used to plant an Indigenous edible garden out the back.

“It won’t just be a place to work but a place for the community to really enjoy. We’re aiming to have both of these ready before next year’s Duck race in February.”

Other plans for the space include utilising it as a creative space for garden art projects, decorating the dividing tennis courts, and increasing the total of garden beds to 10.

Four people including Ms Cations meet at the site each Wednesday from 3.30pm to maintain the garden.