Unused Land, Temporary Food Gardens – Vancouver, New York, Here?

In inner Melbourne, 3000 Acres, a food activist community group has identified 12 inner city sites to establish small community-led veg, fruit and herb gardens.

Vancouver And New York Already Doing This

A New York-based project called 596 Acres provided inspiration for three Melburnians and they have just won a VicHealth grant to set up a similar project. Vancouver is also doing heaps!

No Guerilla Tactics Here!

Overseas permission isn’t always sought but 3000 Acres is currently negotiating with VicTrack and several businesses to lease parcels of land that are either unused or set to lie dormant for some time while awaiting construction works.

Harvard Uni Research

Uni research shows that people who grow their own food eat fresh food more often and are therefore healthier!

3000 Acres Goals

Co-founders Chris Renkin, Jeff Proven and Kate Dundas say the project is about connecting people with how food is grown and harvested.

“We want to unlock underutilised land; there’s all this land awaiting development, and we want to transition the site for a year or two with temporary gardens”.

Participants will be able to control what they plant in the above-ground garden beds and once the project is fully operational there’ll be an online map to show where gardens are and where people can get involved.

How It’s Done Overseas

Sole Foods Street Farms describe their method:

“We have developed a system of raised moveable planters that can be stacked on a truck with a forklift and moved. This both isolates the growing medium from contaminated urban soils, allows for production on pavement, and satisfies landowners who cannot make valuable urban land available on a long-term basis .

Our plantings are made at the highest density possible in an attempt to make maximum use of limited space. We use special seeders that precision plant seeds close together, planting towers for making use of vertical space, and rapid crop successions that allow us to replant beds immediately after the previous crop has finished. We estimate that production from these very intensive urban spaces can be 15-25 times higher than more conventional “open field” farm plantings.”

Excellent!