UC Community Garden

The first workshop introduced us to the idea of creating a community garden at UC. Apparently UC is one the most wasteful campuses in Australia which is quite embarrassing because ANU has made some great changes to the way they deal with waste and are seen to be leading the way when in comes to sustainable practices on campus. Those ANU kids are smug enough as it is without having that fact to rub in our faces so UC is making a concerted effort to run more efficiently and with less impact on the environment.

The first thing that needs to change is people's attitudes towards sustainability and the environment so Beth Mitchell has been pushing the idea of having the community garden and a seed bank on campus in an effort to raise awareness and get the students involved in creating a greener campus.

Image courtesy of Stephen Barass

Here is an audio recording by Stephen Barass of Beth's presentation from the day after our workshop.



Our workshop was at a bit of a disadvantage as Beth was not present for us to ask questions of her directly but after a quick discussion we came up with a few things that Stephen could ask her at the main workshop session being held the next day. Some of these included;

• What are the most wasteful things at UC?
• Is are recycling at UC actually getting recycled, or are we being deceived?
• Why start with a garden? Why not start with food composting like at ANU?
• What will the food be used for?
• What happens if the garden is not used?
• What about theft/vandalism? How to protect it?

After this discussion we thought about the 3 unique aspects that the garden may bring to UC, these were;

A Unique Social Space - The main epicentre for social interaction at UC is based around the refectory and bar areas and normally includes drinking. The community garden could provide a healthier and relaxing alternative where students can socialise outside while they tend the garden.

A Thinking Space - The garden could act as a refuge where students can escape from the stresses of looming deadlines and have a place to unwind from the fast pace of Uni life. Gardening may help with relieving creative block and provide a place for procrastinators to put their efforts towards something more productive.

An Opportunity to Earn and Connect - With Zierholz, Sizzle Cafe and Mizuno so close by the garden could be used to provide fresh produce to these businesses and create earning that could be used to fund further sustainability projects. Spaces could be rented out to local groups and businesses or allocated to UC Residential blocks to create a sense of community collaboration and healthy competition.

We were also tasked to come up with three user groups we could see making use of the garden. They were;

Businesses, Residents and Procrastinators. 

Our final task for the session was then to break up into groups and brainstorm as many ideas as we could that would appeal to each of our groups. We had procrastinators and came up with the tagline "Are your ideas getting stale? Try something fresh" which works on the theory that people have their greatest epiphanies when they distance themselves from their work a bit and do something to take their minds of it. Things like having a shower or going for a walk are said to be good ways of clearing your mind and gathering  inspiration so why not gardening?

Photo courtesy of Sam Bartlett

Student emails, UC Radio, SMS, and Facebook would all be great ways to engage and educate students about the garden with, Facebook being particularly useful as most procrastinating students would be on there anyway. We could use the platform to provide updated information about the progress of the garden as well as allowing students to upload content about their experiences and show off their crops.

I also had an idea after the workshop that we could create a game along the lines of Plants vs Zombies where the zombies are wasteful students who come in and trash the garden and the idea is to convert them into garden friendly people who help tend the garden instead of destroying it. Players would be rewarded with tips and information about the real garden and could also win real life items such as shovels and seeds as they complete levels and convert students successfully.