07 Nov New project for Community Garden!

Community Garden Project

We are excited to announce the new project for the Camperdown Community Garden.

Since 2017 the Camperdown Community Garden Steering Group have been designing a project to improve the accessibility and increase community engagement with the Camperdown Community Garden.

In July 2018 Camperdown Community House was successful in receiving funding from FRRR Gardiner Dairy Foundation to make this project a reality.

The aims of the project include:

• To enhance the existing community asset of the Community Garden
• Introduce new infrastructure which improves the accessibility to this site for people of all abilities
• Increase opportunities for community engagement
• Establish and sustain community partnerships
• Strengthen the sustainability and impact of the community garden

This project has a number of stages and will be rolled out over a twelve month period. Following the infrastructure improvements, the project will also involve developing opportunities for engagement and learning, such as gardening and nutrition workshops.

The main focus of the project, in regards to infrastructure improvement, will be the introduction of four new garden plots that have designed to be accessible for people with mobility restrictions. The current garden plots are very low to the ground and are not accessible for people who use wheelchairs or other mobility aids.

This project has involved a great deal of community consultation, and has opened up new opportunities for partnerships already, even before the new plots have been installed. One such partnership has been with the Camperdown Men’s Shed, who have helped design and construct the four new plots. The Men’s Shed will also assist with the installation of the plots and ongoing maintenance needs in the community garden to ensure the existing and new infrastructure is maintained at a high standard.

The Steering Group has designed a new colour coded system for garden plots, and new ways of communicating with other garden and community members, and encouraging engagement. We will be introducing new signage with these new community garden guidelines, along with a noticeboard which we will use to communicate about upcoming events, working bees and workshops.

As a part of encouraging broader community engagement with the garden, we will be developing a working calendar of seasonal events in the garden

We have already held our first set of workshops as a part of this project with the three part Introduction to Propagation workshop series.

This is an exciting project designed to have long term impacts, encouraging broader access, engagement and enjoyment of the Camperdown Community Garden, and creating the opportunity for more ‘community’ in our community garden.

Keep up to date by following us on Facebook and signing up for our e-news.