ABOUT OUR GARDEN AND COMMUNITY

The Ashwood High School Community Garden was established in 2007 by Mariette Touhey, a parent and school council president. The garden has been maintained and loved for over 15 years through volunteer efforts, teaching people of all ages, abilities and backgrounds about gardening, healthy eating, and the environment, while also helping people to build connections within the community while aiding in improving their physical and mental health. 

Our current members are aged between 3 and 75 years old and include families, the disabled, the elderly, immigrant people, LGBTQ people, and people from diverse social and cultural backgrounds, and more. Everybody is welcome!

The garden is open to everybody, and in the past, our members have helped students with school projects, provided a safe space for students, assisted in school working bees, shared gardening space and knowledge, run talks for the community, and donated food to aged care homes and those in need.

GARDEN INFRASTRUCTURE & RESOURCES   

Over the many years of work and care, the garden has accrued a number of major pieces of infrastructure that are irreplaceable and near impossible to move or replicate without putting in that time again.

Some of these are listed below:

• 30 established fruit trees, one so rare that the Botanical Gardens will likely try to save if the garden is going to close. We have figs, olives, loquats, berries, apples (7 varieties), mulberry, peaches, blueberries, nashi, plums (5 varieties), cherries, apricot, macadamia, nectarine, almond, saltbush, lemons, grapefruit, lime.
• There is also a collection of subtropical plants including avocado, mango, jaboticaba, a tea plant, sapote, carob, persimmon, cherimoya, babaco and banana to name but a few. 
• Two 70,000 litre water tanks bought with a $50,000 Federal grant, originally located on the hill to get head pressure. It took 3 years to save up the money ($15,000) and 4 working bees to relocate and rebuild both tanks after the demolition of a building. 
• A large shade house where seed raising and potting up take place.
• A pergola that provides some weather protection.
• A pizza oven which was constructed from clay dug up on site.
• A 5-bay composting station, compost bins, garden tools etc.
• 6 raised wicking beds – built by Rotary.
• A bee hive, now managed by an outside community member
• Hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer labour

 

THE ISSUE

We were notified on the 11th of November 2022 that due to the school's current classroom capacity not being sufficient to accommodate all the students they legally must accept, they have decided to hire and install 2 portable classroom buildings on the land currently used by the garden. They intend to bring in bulldozers on the 1st of January 2023 and wipe out the majority of the garden. This would destroy all the infrastructure and work that has been put into the garden by our community over the past ~16 years. This is a heartbreaking possibility for us to be facing.

The school, garden community, and broader community will lose so much if this occurs. 

The garden will no longer be able to provide safe spaces for those in need.

It will no longer be able to share knowledge or experiences. 

Please sign this petition to help save our garden and allow us to continue sharing!!