• We blocked off two roads beside Peace Park in Chippendale and the sun shone for the Food For The Future Fair
In 2008 about 5,000 people came during the day of the fair we made in streets in Chippendale, NSW.
Some people who had never held a shovel, did so, and planted plants and trees they chose from the 300 plants and trees kindly given to us by Sydney City Council.
• We asked the police to share the fun
Before the fair the Council generously dug up concrete for us to put soil in and to plant out.
• Concrete was under the former ‘landscaping’ and with Council’s terrific assistance we removed it and put in soil and plants
We divided plants and trees into two categories for residents and businesses to choose; those for the sunny side of the street, and those for the shady side.
• “Do you live on the sunny or the shady side of the street”
The soil was so hard and lifeless nothing was growing in it - the the trees were stunted, slow growing and just surviving.
• As the soil was rock-hard a council worker went back to the council depot and returned with a jack hammer to dig tree and plant holes
And this is how that same stretch of street (Shepherd Street) looks today (below).
• Now that same part of the street shades and cools the street and houses, lowers temperatures, holds rainwater, increases property values
Some more photos of that day below . . . more details, ‘how to do it’, and data is in my book, Sustainable Food.
We used hay bales firstly for seats then for mulch around the new plants and trees.
• A chook business, Rent-A-Chook, showed chooks can live in the city, too
Wonderful advice and practical gardening assistance came from all over, including from Permaculture North, Sydney, shown in the photo below.
• Wonderful Permaculture North folk rolled up their sleeves and donated their time, knowledge and skill to our road gardens
Our local gardening page has lots of information, too - Sustainable Chippendale Active Gardeners.
One thing we did which goes to the long-lasting of gardens - installing passive irrigation. To water the road gardens with rain from building roofs and the roads we installed leaky wells, an ancient water harvesting design.
The photo below shows a hole being dug to be filled with rubble inside a long-lasting geofabric cloth into which water from the road gutter drains.
• After removing the concrete from the previous ‘landscaping in the corner bulge we dug a hole and directed rain from the gutter to irrigate the trees and plants from below - where the roots are and ‘drink’ out of human sight. Strangely the ‘landscaping’ folk in Australia don’t do this and so our cities are needlessly heated up by poor and stunted tree and plant canopy.
The social ‘glue’ lives on after it was created in 2008 and some of it is expressed in the gardening that became part of our lives afterwards .
Michael