Meet the grower This urban gardener’s community garden has given him room to grow
For this urban farmer, a backyard patch wasn’t quite enough, so he branched out into his local community garden and now everyone is reaping the rewards, writes SALLY FELDMAN
At first glance, you’d think Justin O’Brien was farming a sizeable acreage. There’s Romanesco broccoli plants the size of, well, the Colosseum, a profusion of other beloved brassicas and a stack of jars of deep-amber raw honey he’s labelled ‘Montpelier Gold’. In fact, that ‘acreage’ is just a couple of minutes down the road from his home in Sydney’s west, where he lives with his wife, Chantelle, and their two young daughters.
Justin’s patch is two 2.5m by 5m plots at Camden Community Garden, which is part of Camden Town Farm, bequeathed to the local community in 1999 by one
Miss Llewella Davies, reputedly one of the area’s “most colourful characters”. It sits among walking trails and parkland in an area encompassing about 36ha of the Cumberland Plain Woodland. “It used to be an old dairy farm,” says Justin,
“so the land is quite fertile.”
When he and Chantelle moved into their new home about five years ago, they left behind a decent-sized vegetable garden, complete with chooks. Justin had visions of turning the 825m2 property into another vegie powerhouse. “Then Chantelle said, ‘Do you mind if we don’t turn the backyard into a working farm?’,” he smiles. It was time to think outside the fence...
a communal approach
Justin had already joined the community garden a couple of years previously, having run out of room on his former property. “So, I built a chicken coop and donated our chickens,” he says. “They’ve been a big hit – especially with kids that visit. Everyone shares the eggs and loves looking after the chickens. Whoever’s there will let them out to free range around the garden.”
Of course, the chooks contribute in more ways than eggs. “They add value to the compost, that’s for sure,” says Justin.
“We always line the coop with woodchip, and it’s amazing how quickly it breaks down from the moisture and chicken manure. Digging out the coop lining every three months or so and adding it to the compost – it’s so lovely and dark and rich.”
The results can be seen throughout the garden, where, depending on individuals’ tastes, you’ll find flourishing rose gardens, cottage gardens, vegetable patches or a mixture of both. “There’s also a large herb garden and vegie area, which everyone helps to maintain,” says Justin. “A lot of produce and seedling swapping goes on, too, because, as any vegetable gardener knows, sometimes you’re ‘growing for glut’, so there’s plenty of sharing.”