I wanted to use them to promote a few of my projects -- like Soul Line Dancing -- which has just expanded...and I've been thinking through community gardening options.
To fund my stall cost I bought along a quick harvest of vegetables from my garden and the sale of these easily funded the excapade. A few quick sales. Easey peasey.
So I've been thinking....
With a monthly schedule of markets I can engineer my growing cycle to ensure that I can run regular stalls. Would be a bit of an income earner to assuage my poverty.
And I am a pauper...
So I thought some more and in my community gardening mode I wondered if I could form a loose cooperative of local gardeners who'd supply a stall each month. There may not be many out there -- but every gardener has a surplus, sometimes.
Feed the locals with locally grown fresh, probably organic, produce. Win. Win.
It turns out -- after some online discourse(check it out: good discussion) -- that there are precedents in the here and now. Best example is the urban based Organopónicos of Havana, Cuba (which I am very familiar with)...as well there are a few other urban ag models like Spin Farming and Land Share.
Landshare Australia brings together people who have a passion for home-grown food, connecting those who have land to share with those who need land for cultivating food. The concept of Landshare began in the UK, launched through the River Cottage television program in 2009, and has since grown into a thriving community of more than 57,000 growers, sharers and helpers across the country. Now that Landshare is here in Australia, we welcome you to come and take part in this fantastic initiative. Landshare is for people who:
- Want to grow vegetables but don't have anywhere to do it
- Have a spare bit of land they're prepared to share
- Can help in some way – from sharing knowledge and lending tools to helping out on the plot itself
- Support the idea of freeing up more land for growing
- Are already growing and want to join in the community
The Land Share template is closest to my preference, situation...and ideology. As I wrote in the chit chat:
Of course community gardening is a hub for a lot of different relationships -- but do we really need to set aside a special plot -- a 'common' -- to do that? A seed savers network may also serve the same function. On top of all these issues a community garden requires access to shared space, a collective and ongoing commitment, a water source for irrigation, insurance and some degree of hope that no local thugs are gonna destroy or steal your crops (as happened this last month to the local primary school's veg garden). So I'm looking for another model...and I'm wondering about a gardening collective/cooperative where folk visit each other's gardens, help out as needed, swap seeds and plants but primarily come together to grow produce that can be distributed (and sold) locally at market stalls. It's a market model..a community market model for locally grown produce. People grow their own stuff and the collective sells any surplus to family needs to the locals.So long as the network can be established...it may work.So there.I thought that -- but it had already been in play elsewhere on the planet...All I have to do is join in.
