Garden Art & Sunflower
Northey Street City Farm is a three hectare permaculture city farm in my city ‘Brisbane’. NSCF was the first community garden in Brisbane and was started in 1992 by Dick Copeman and a group of his friends. The site where Northey Street City Farm is, was council land situated on Enoggera Creek in Windsor, and after the 1974 floods when the houses that were previously on the site were washed away council turned it into a grass park. In the beginning there was no water or toilets and some areas of the park had concrete from the previous houses and streets, the was soil degraded and hard from the compaction caused from mowing, making the initial phases of setting up a city farm a difficult task.
In the beginning the NSCF crew wanted to start a city farm based on organic permaculture principles involving members of the community including children. NSCF utilised the labor force of the Brisbane Institute of TAFE Horticulture students, the students helped build no dig gardens, put up fences and assisted with planting. NSCF realised that engaging the community was as important to the success of NSCF as gardening; by hosting events, doing door knocks and letter drops NSCF engaged the community and gathered support. NSCF applied and successfully secured government grants and utilised community members through the work for the dole scheme.
NSCF currently have eight full-time staff and although they rely of government grants they aim to be as self sufficient as possible, by creating enterprises such as the Farmers Market, Edible Landscapes Nursery, Chai Cafe and the Training Programs.
Aspect of NSCF
Edible Landscapes Nursery.
Organic farmers market that provide fruit and vegetables to 1000+ customers every week.
Kitchen gardens where food for the volunteers lunches are gathered.
Chickens, ducks, worms farms and bees.
Compost heaps.
Bush regeneration.
Bush tucker and native food.
Farmers market garden.
Accredited permaculture training courses.
There is nothing I enjoy more that doing my shopping at Northey Street organic markets, I gather so much pleasure from wandering around under the trees meeting the sellers and bumping into friends. Unlike many people who go to conventional supermarkets it is not something I rush, when I go shopping there I am usually there for over an hour and end up enjoying a coffee in the gardens and snacking of fresh produce.
If you would like to check out some more photos from my last NSCF visit, please click here go to the Brisbane to Bogota Flicker site.
