The Deakin Community Garden
Did you know we have a Community Garden at the Burwood Campus? The Deakin Community Garden was created in 2016 as a place where students can relax, socialise and… garden! Everyone is welcome at the Community Garden, and there are many ways you can get involved; from workshops to working bee’s, every hand is helpful!
With the mission of making Deakin more sustainable, the Community Garden produces lots of seasonal vegetables and perennial herbs. It also produces some fruit including dwarf apples, passionfruit, strawberries, tomato and native raspberries, which all usually fruit in summer.
Some of the garden’s seasonal veg includes:
Winter – Broccoli, pumpkins, carrot, beans, kale, cauliflower, rocket, beetroot, zucchini, garlic, onion, sprouts and more.
Summer – Cucumbers, tomatoes, squash and pumpkins, capsicum, scarlet runner beans, peas, lettuces and greens, and our fruits.
To give you a little more information about the garden, here’s a statement from a Deakin Community Garden expert:
For the garden, seasonality is important as it brings variety into an otherwise monocultured garden (monocultured meaning to produce only a single crop). Growing and using different produce supports the health of our soil, the perennial species we grow, as well as the ecology of our gardens, which includes things like the insects and pollinators that we need for our gardens to live.
Within a community garden model, the ‘community’ includes the plants and animals that keep our garden thriving as well as the people ‘community’ that live from it. Both our people, plant and animal communities are best when they’re diverse!
In terms of health benefits from using seasonal produce, variety during different times of the year is crucial in maintaining a healthy diet. The different vitamins and minerals that various seasonal vegetables offer often align with what our bodies require throughout different times of the year.
Seasonal produce is also always fresher and therefore contains more nutritional benefits, especially when obtained from a community garden. At Deakin Community Garden, we don’t use sprays or pesticides as we only hand weed and use natural pest repellents such as turmeric and peppermint oil, so our produce is always the safest, healthiest and most affordable (free!!).’
For more information about the Community Garden at Deakin, or if you want to get involved, you can join their Facebook and Instagram communities below:
You can also visit their other sites listed here for any other questions or queries you may have:
Having a community garden right at your footstep is an incredible resource, and one that should not be taken for granted. We were lucky enough to use some of the produce from the Community Garden at Waurn Ponds Estate in our delicious Minestrone Soup. We certainly encourage everyone to check out the garden and get your hands dirty while absorbing the benefits of communal gardening and learning a new skill.
Happy gardening everyone!