Home | About Me | Fiction | Poetry
| Essays |
CDs/CD-ROM & teaching
material | Contact
Luscious Lane
from Glenda
Lindsay,
Fitzroy, Victoria,
October
2006
We live in North Fitzroy and are blessed with a large enough block to
share foodgrowing space with neighbours (we've dubbed it 'Luscious Lane'
as its entry door is off a rear laneway). A 2100ltr tank catches runoff
from one side of the old stables roof to serve Luscious Lane (and is
down to 1/3rd full) with another 650ltr tank (way too small, I know)
coming off the other side for garden use closer to the house.
Four households
(7 people) share the work and the produce from Luscious Lane. We also
have monthly working bees, seasonal propogating sessions and informal
networking with other urban foodgrowing folk (eg Cultivating Community,
CERES, Melbourne Food Network, Eat the Suburbs ) We recently had a permablitz
here (the sustainable foodgrowing real-life equivalent of TVs Backyard
Blitz - see www.permablitz.org
)
One Luscious Lane gardener has instigated a foodgrowing and cooking
class at the local community school, bringing small groups of primary
school kids here to grow food in a dedicated raised bed, using the opportunity
to nurture many social, academic, and observational skills as the kids
get up close and personal with worms, birds, bees, butterflies and other
cohabitants. They regularly weed, water, check the rain guage and the
sundial, talk about what they want to grow, then work out the space,
sun/shade, water, height and companion planting possibilities to guide
their decisions. Its such a joy to see urban kids learning these life
skills.
Our household
water comes from the 22,500ltr raintank under the deck (now less than
½ full) and we recycle it via a greywater system that flushes
our loo and makes greywater available to a separate set of garden taps
(I use these every 3rd or 4th time I water fruit trees)
We normally use no mains water in the house, but about half our garden
water (there are an extra three raised veggie / herb beds and several
fruit trees in the section of backyard visible from the house) is mains
water and probably half our greens at this time of year come from the
garden, with enough to share with friends and neighbours. For personal
bathing, I use our handbasin most days, showering every 2nd or 3rd day…
having lived in India and Africa, I find it no hardship and am grateful
for the amazing gift of water from a tap.
I'd rather use the water on the garden to share with the beauty it grows
and attracts.
My community volunteer work is focussed on creating more urban foodgrowing
opportunities as a pro-active strategy to deal with the dwindling availability
/ rising cost of the non-renewable fossil fuels on which our food and
transport systems currently rely. I'm hopeful we can inspire councils
to start incorporating more food trees and bushfoods into streetscapes,
supporting groups of neighbours to 'adopt a street tree' thereby becoming
stewards of locally grown foods accessable to schoolkids and people
experiencing hunger and homelessness.
As a 'relocalising food security' team member of the organizing crew
for next years National conference on 'Cities Feeding People - Grow
It Where You Live!" I'm excited by the emerging synergies blossoming
(further info and updates on the conference by registering your interest
via email to: reception @ ceres.org.au )
Anyway, I'm imagining there are probably hundreds, if not thousands
or millions of people with similar motivations all 'doing their bit'
(as uncovered in the social research of Paul Ray & Sherry Ruth Anderson
in their groundbreaking 2000 book 'Cultural
Creatives - how 50 million people are changing the world')
Supporting, inspiring and widening the circles of people recognizing
the fact that what we do DOES make a difference has to be one of the
most necessary and rewarding ways of living our lives. The converging
global challenges of 'Peak Oil' and 'Climate Change' call for our greatest
creativity and resourcefulness - what a great opportunity to awaken
underutilised qualities and skills in our communities!
As someone has neatly stenciled on a wall afew blocks up the hill from
our house,
'Nobody can do everything, but everyone can do something'
email
feedback to Glenda to: homeplanet [at] ozemail [dot] com [dot] au
back
to Water Wisdom article
Home | About Me | Fiction | Poetry
| Essays |
CDs/CD-ROM & teaching
material | Contact