A bit more background to the Yoorala St Community Garden at The Gap as a model for us to learn something from.

Colin & his wife Michelle who are key movers in the development had a long prior involvement in the bush food garden at Yoorala St and an organic vege farming business (as I recall). So the community garden proprosal in a way flowed on from already established gardens and experience.

The SOWN nursery has been operating in The Gap for a long time and this also provided a base. As I understand it the Yoorala St proposal was able to be submitted with the insurance need covered by the SOWN insurance which is already for gardening-type activity. Any garden project here would need to consider the insurance issue as part of the proposal.

The SOWN clubroom facility is also now proving a boon.

In a way it is a good example of something we have faced from the start in The Grove and why it has been so important to establish an identity as The Grove and work to build up our own infrastructure even if it means pulling ourselves up by our own bootstaps.

Where there is already a resource hub it readily attracts more funds and activity. Samford is an excellent example of this. And for the same reason we have missed out because we haven’t had the starting infrastructure. The only way we are going to get it is with patience and persistence but once we do this it will be here not in the next valley. We will then be on a good basis to grow. That is why getting incorporated was so important.

We have some garden infrastructure and experience in The Grove already and would do well to really understand it. For example there is Ferny Grove State High School Agriculture Program the garden at the North West Health Community Centre the garden at the Grovely State School the horticulture infrastructure at the Grovely TAFE and some locals with great knowledge like Phil Ryan and Malcolm Boal and Annette McFarlane and there are the young people who have done Agriculture at the school.