Ask any of our garden hosts for the Central Coast Edible Garden Trail and they’ll tell you how growing food definitely does more than just fill your plate. It can absolutely help grow a sense of community. As we tend our permaculture gardens, harvesting on the daily, more often than not a neighbour pops their head over the fence for a friendly chat, or on our street verge gardens we connect with any passerby.
That simple exchange turns into a delightful conversation about gardening tips, recipes for unusual ingredients, and even sharing some produce. At community gardens these connections tend to go even deeper, forming life-long friendships with like-minded volunteers. At every community garden we visit we see this again and again – the people are what make the garden wonderful, and each time its like meeting a family who care deeply for each other, not just in the garden but in day to day life. Along with producing incredible food, community gardens are extremely important places for so many people.
I think I speak for all our garden hosts when I say, I don’t think any of us would claim to be ‘self-sufficient’. Its a big ask to think you can do it all as a home gardener, self-sufficiency is often touted as the pinnacle of food growing but we prefer the term ‘community sufficiency’. Certainly we grow all kinds of things in our gardens but it also means shopping, swapping or sharing locally through produce swaps, Farmers Markets, Farm Gate stalls, community co-ops and local businesses we know and trust.
Turn up to any Farmers Market and you’ll witness first hand a connected community. Here in our little village, Killcare, each Thursday afternoon, we are lucky enough to have a Farmers Market at the Hardys Bay Club. Its not a big event, we usually have between 6 and 10 stallholders, all local to the Central Coast, all passionate about healthy organically produced food. I get my veggies from Eden and Kelly, meat and eggs from Ethan, mushies from Charlie, honey from Brad, kimchi and beetroot relish from Lyn, sourdough from Trent, some labne from Sue, kombucha from another Sue, and on special occasions I grab some oysters from David and a few home cooked meals from Ali. The local primary school kids have cottoned on too and are quite entrepreneurial, baking delicious treats each week that are always a sell out.
Along with what I’ve grown in my garden I can absolutely whip up meals with 100% food from my garden and these wonderful producers. I don’t pretend that I don’t also shop at the supermarket, our family isn’t trying to be perfectly sustainable, but we are absolutely giving ‘imperfect sustainability’ a red hot go. Have you heard the phrase ‘we don’t need a few people doing everything perfectly, we need millions doing it imperfectly’, if we all do our bit, hopefully we can help turn this ship around.
So, whether you’re growing your own, swapping your bumper crop, or shopping direct with our local Farmers, remember: you’re not just nurturing your body with great food; together we’re nurturing a community!
Written by Anna Trigg and Hannah Sitkowski from Greenheart Gardens
Find your Local Farmers
Each year to celebrate the incredible food growing community of the Central Coast, we produce the LOCAL FOOD GUIDE which features all our farmers and producers who are growing using organic methods, are committed to farming and living regeneratively and once you taste their amazing food, you’ll understand exactly why they have loyal customers returning week after week to support them. Click on the image to download a PDF printable version.
