Brisbane's Beelerong Community Farm team.

Creativity and community in Brisbane

Beelerong community farmer, Marion Forrest reports...

Like bees returning to a hive with their precious nectar, the one and a half hectare Beelarong Community Farm in York Street, Morningside, Brisbane, attracts people who continually bring to the farm their valuable knowledge of sustainability issues.

Situated in Brisbane City Council parkland, only seven kilometres from the centre of Brisbane, the Beelarong Community Farm is:

• creating place where all members of the community can meet and feel welcome
• growing plants for food in an ecologically sound way
• sharing skills and knowledge about growing fruit, vegetables, herbs, bush tucker, and flowers in a sustainable, natural environment
• regenerating the site with the help of biodynamic preparations
• fostering school involvement
• saving and exchanging locally adapted open pollinated, non-hybrid, heritage seeds
• demonstrating to the general public technological and design solutions that make sustainable living in the city possible.

Community education is a focus for Beelerong City Farm, as this workshop shows.

The composting toilet and solar electric panels are simple technologies for conserving resources that the community farm demonstrates to the public.

A swarm of busy-bees

The Beelarong Community Farms' small band of hard working busy-bees seem to possess plenty of enthusiasm. Perhaps this is because they also recognise that, due to increased population pressures in this new millennium, sustainable living and working habits will soon become the major focus for humankind.

Gradually the farms hard, compacted back clay soils are being turned into fertile community beds with the help of many worms and the rich humus from our compost-making efforts. And over the last couple of years we have also been trialing different green manure cover crops to help bring up-scale the remaining growing area.

Reusing used water

This year, we have focused on water-wise solutions which could be implemented into the suburban home environment.

Of interest to visitors - and council officers too - is the water flushing compost toilet with its worm farm underneath, sand filter and blackwater transpiration area utilising deep rooted vetiver grass.

Grey water

A grey water system, also proving very popular as the farm, is displaying how the water from a kitchen sink can be used to water a herb bed and be built into the architecture of a house:

• the system has a small grease trap to removes solid particles
• next, the grey water flows through an aquatic torture path where water plants are grown
• then the grey water goes through a sand filter and reed bed, ultimately arriving at our tidal rock marsh where we grow our herbs; exposed to the sun, this raised herb garden gets hot in the day and cools off at night; in the hot sun during the day the moisture rises in the soil, watering the plant roots; at night, the moisture level falls; this rising and falling motion creates a tidal action and oxygenates the soil at night; the tidal action encourages the growth of different types of microorganisms that further assist in the purification of the grey water.

Healthy, local food for city people

I think the time is right to take a fresh look at where society is positioned. I feel we need not think we have to create a completely new future, but need to understand the future, which is already developing around us both in the built environment and in organic food production:

Farmers markets, community assisted agriculture, community farms and farmers providing boxes of organic food once a week to city folk are all ways which are starting to become popular as they provide affordable, fairly locally produced, healthy food for city dwellers.

Beelerong's seed bank preserves the biodiversity of our food plants

Nature is abundant. It hasnt taken long for the Beelarong Community Farm to produce an abundance of seeds. Our members are kept excited and busy swapping, planting, growing and eating many different varieties of fruit and vegetables.

Slowly, we are all gaining experience and becoming more efficient at growing fruit and vegetables from our own locally adapted non-hybrid seed bank, be it at our community farm or in member's backyards.

Creativity overcomes lack of money

Working on a shoestring budget is quite challenging. It is very easy to rectify problems as they arise when money is available. When money is not readily available, a certain amount of creativity is forced to happen.

We have learnt the hard way (without much financial assistance) how to become sustainable. We have done that by understanding all community members strengths as well as the strengths of those in our close neighbourhood who are prepared to lend a hand from time to time.

As a result of our efforts though, our small community farm does seem to now be challenging old individualistic patterns of thought and behaviour in members and in the residents close by.

I do think the Beelarong Community Farm is also skilling up the surrounding small community as we farm, share knowledge, run courses and help one another. And as we work together to achieve common goals and assets, both bonding of people to people and people to place seems to be occurring.

It has not been easy. Indeed it has been hard going trying to get people of very diverse backgrounds to act as a team. However, we are gaining immense pride in our farm, farming abilities and communication skills with each other as well as council and government offices. Slowly but surely we are rebuilding a sustainable community with a sense of belonging in an urban area.