UniSA property lecturer Dr Geoff Page guided a group through the Cittaslow Goolwa Community Garden at Kessell Road, Goolwa, for the fourth successive year to show them first-hand how a community garden can be sustainable and develop tremendous community spirit.
Dr Page said community gardens were also about local pride, and should be built into city sub-divisions right from the start.
“There is a requirement for open space, but quite often it is space that is never used properly,” he said. “There is no plan; it is there for the sake of it. It would be better applied with community gardens and community orchards and make the space usable.
“This is one way of bringing people together. This sustainability also encourages people to grow their own.”
The students are doing a course is Land Use Planning and Sustainability, which can lead to jobs relating to land management, land valuation, property managers and a range of other property management skills.
“One of the reasons for coming here at the Goolwa Community Garden is to talk about community gardens in terms of their sustainability relating to growing things and the social aspects of sustainability,” Dr Page said.
“It is very easy to see engineering works, but not the social side, and this community garden and the work by Cittaslow presents a wonderful example of a community working together.”
The students – many of them from overseas – also visited Hayborough to investigate Beyond, another magnificent environmental approach to property development.