The Coal Loader Community Garden group meets Wednesday 9.30am till 12 noon.
Residents are welcome to join-in during these hours.
There are weekend rosters for watering the garden and for chook keeping. Being an organic communal garden without individual garden plots, everything harvested is shared among the participants at the weekly meeting.
The garden is open for viewing any day of the week.
Another garden in the same areas is the Coal Loader Bushfood Garden which was refreshed in July 2020 by a new group bringing together community gardeners and bush care volunteers. There is descriptive signage for each variety of plant explaining how they can be prepared and consumed. Special emphasis has been placed on cultivars local to the region. The garden is adjacent to bushland at the Coal Loader entrance at Waterhen Drive and is open at all times.
History
The Coal Loader Community Garden is set in a former Coal Loader industrial site where coal was delivered, stockpiled and transferred to passenger and cargo ships until the early 1990s. The site is now the The Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability which includes the Coal Loader Platform, community gardens, Community Native Nursery and many other interesting facilities.
The garden was conceived in 2005 when Council invited the local community to participate in the planning and design of the area.
Enthusiastic residents have followed environmentally sustainable principles and have been gardening, learning, laughing and enjoying the garden’s harvest through the seasons since 2007.
