I went there about this time last year, they held a "convergance" of Community Gardens, Joel Orchard, and apt name, is coordinating it. Very impressive, 5 acres, ours here in Pottsville is smaller than most back yards, but we use it fro the local play groups, preschools to get them learning. My own land is 2 feet of beach sand on top or 3 metres of fill on top of an old swamp, not great for trees, but we make enough soil for vegies. I miss having lots of land.

@Rugglesby, yes, i miss my space @ wilson's creek in the caravan as well. it was ideal for vegies, in the dappled shade of 5 huge camphor laurels. & let no one ever tell you that nothing will grow under them.

I agree, would never assume I could become food self sufficient, but the way I work is to over produce, 1st plan is to have a 25% over production, 2nd stage is 400% over production of the things we grow, We swap and give away a lot.One can only eat so many passion fruit, or sweet potatoes.

Thanks for the link, am reading it now.

@Rugglesby I didn't read the link and thought it was just about 'Horse Drawn' which is only 1 of many farms. I read it and it is the usual surprise sensation which I often get about this place. I know many of the people. Dixie Budke led up a group of 'gleaners' of which I have been engaged for years. We picked over 5,000 lbs of fruit from various places. Some were given to the owners, some to us and some to our 'Lopez Fresh' (a kind of food bank). A lot of it was taken to our K-12 school and processed (I also did this). We made sauces, leathers and a lot of dried fruit which is being used by the school throughout the year. The school also has a big gardening program and private gardeners are asked to 'grow a row" of extra food to be distributed to this school.

I have lived here for 7 years yet continue to find out new things about the place. It is about geography, geography, geography!

@JackPedigo wow, that whole set up is really impressive, congrats to all involved for keeping the energy going. We are on a big drive against food waste in this region, we store and distribute upcycled produce that is cooked elsewhere from surpluses. Just don't have the space to operate the cooking side of things.

@Rugglesby My later partner had me build her a worm bin (they are common here). She went to our local supermarket and got them to give her food that was to be tossed. She brought it home (some of it was still good but just had a small blemish) and put it in the worm bin. The store workers felt better about this way of recycling food they would normally throw away. Because of her example several other people now do this.

yes, we have worm bins also, I have lots at home, I put spoiled fruit in there if the chooks don't eat it, I had 2 big ones at work, staff bring in their scraps from home, like you say, makes them feel they are doing the right thing. I have anew gardener, awesome guy, just moved both to the area and to Oz, one days he was commenting about the lack of worms in the soil, next week I had a look, he had dug up the gardens, and tipped the worm farms in, I haven't had the heart to tell him they are different worms. I will find a way, cultural differences have made it hard, he lacks self confidence so I don't want to make him feel bad.

My biggest problem with community gardens is that they are continually raided. We use ours a lot for education, it is very small, but most times when we have good crops, get to work one day and they have been trashed. Most of our gardeners grow at home and take in surplus for the community.

@Rugglesby in ours, we grow for the community. In a large sense it's designed to be raided. And the gardeners all have their own private plots in their back yards.

@farmboy2017 Yes, ours is as well, we have a community pantry of non perishables and we supplement that with fresh produce as we are able. The produce is for the community, but sadly some people just come in and clean it out, they also take our hoses, any equipment they can find, the wheels off our trailer. Luckily, like yourselves, our gardeners grow at home also, we swap among ourselves as well as donate surplus to teh garden and pantry, that is the only way we have some left for those in need sometimes.