NICE DIGS: GARDENER’S $270K VEGIE PATCH
A GUERRILLA green thumb has turned a $270,000 plot of land in the heart of Geelong’s CBD into what might be the city’s most valuable vegie patch.
Robert McCurdy, a 72-yearold retiree, has spent the past year transforming the vacant patch of land in a laneway just off Ryrie St into a blossoming garden.
The land — a 156 square metre block that sold for $270,000 in January, according to Corelogic property data — was placed in Mr McCurdy’s care by its owner following a mutual friend’s suggestion.
“The block has been vacant for some 20-odd years,” Mr McCurdy said. “And a chap just recently bought it — a chap I don’t know that well — and he was approached by a neighbour of mine and the idea was put to him and he said: ‘Go for it, do what you want. You can have it for as long as I’m doing nothing with it’.”
The vegie patch, which is just a few doors down from Mr McCurdy’s home, includes a thriving assortment of tomatoes, zucchinis, pumpkins, chillies, lettuce and more.
“This is what I do with most of my time, and I thoroughly
enjoy it,” he said. “There’s ’ a bit of fh hard d work. The ground work has all been done, I rotary hoed all this four or five times, and a lot of fertiliser was put into it to get it up and going because it hadn’t been touched for 30 years.”
Produce from the urban garden is shared between Mr McCurdy and his close neighbours and friends, with a couple of nearby mates also getting their hands dirty in the
garden every so often.