Tjilatjirrin Reserve Community Garden is a place where people can grow their own food, learn about gardening and join a community of enthusiastic Bayside gardeners.
The garden, created in January 2024, has flourished into a productive green space thanks to the help of a committee group of volunteers.
Janet and Fiona from the committee remember the opening fondly.
"In celebration, we had an inaugural planting, a passion fruit vine which has flourished and has already provided a bounty of delicious fruit much to everyone's delight," said Janet and Fiona.
Their vision is to bring the community together, learning to grow food and sharing in the harvest, addressing isolation and a growing feeling of disconnection. They're also motivated by mitigating climate change, reducing their carbon footprint in growing their own food, composting and aiming for a circular garden economy.
Throughout the journey to establishing the community garden, the committee have had several successes and things they're proud of, including the partnerships they have formed.
"[We've] formed a co-operative relationship with Holmesglen TAFE who helped build our first raised beds and more recently with young adults doing horticulture at Moorabbin TAFE," said Janet and Fiona. "Our beautiful potting shed, in the vision of a Bayside Bathing Box, was built by the female carpentry students at Moorabbin TAFE and donated to the garden."
Tjilatjirrin Reserve Community Garden has achieved a number of accomplishments in the past one and a half years, including:
- future proofing the garden against potential water restrictions using wicking beds
- ensured their organic garden status, working with Council to prevent kikuyu grass from invading the space
- becoming more accessible, with wide flat garden paths and raised beds
- infrastructure including 13 individual beds, 8 communal beds, multiple dwarf fruit trees, and a large compost bay
They have also navigated challenges, finding it difficult to attract volunteers to form their committee.
Council provided assistance to the volunteers in setting up the garden, completing site works and installing signage to ensure the area is accessible to all and ready to use, including installing a driveway for trucks to deliver essential items.
For the volunteers at Tjilatjirrin, there is much more to come.
"We are just at the beginning of our journey and will continue to develop our garden as we learn from each other's successes and sometimes failures, finding what plants suit our changing climate through trial and error," said Janet and Fiona. "We are already selecting plants for our community beds to [attract pollinators] and create a beautiful and relaxing place that delights all the senses and improves community health by eating locally grown organic seasonal produce."
Learn more about community gardens in Bayside
