by Russ Grayson…
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EDIBLE STREET VERGE GARDENING is something that has been going on for the past 20 years or so in our cities but is now capturing the public imagination such that the number of plantings is rapidly increasing.
For advocates of edible landscaping in our cities, this is good news but for local government the practice can be confusing. What has become apparent during the recent upsurge in the popularity of edible footpath planting is that a set of design and planting guidelines are desperately needed.
Most verge plantings to date have been created by gardeners who know what they are doing. The possibility emerging from the current boost in popularity is that those less knowledgeable will create gardens with inappropriate plants and without considering other footpath users.
In a rural Victorian town local people have turned their street verge into an edible landscape of groundcover plants and fruit trees. Photo: Tamara Griffiths.
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An established practice
Street verge gardening is the practice of growing ornamental, native or edible plants on the footpath. The rise in popularity of edible gardens has brought the planting of fruits, herbs and vegetables, sometimes mixed with flowers and native plants, to our footpaths. The practice has caught the popular imagination and is another means of returning food production to our cities.
That edible verge gardening is an established practice in Australian cities is revealed by a walk around those suburbs where the immigrants of the 1950s and 1960s made their homes, particularly those suburbs favoured by immigrants from the Mediterranean region. What do you find on the footpaths here? Olive trees, now mature and productive.
Unknowingly, some councils have made their own contribution to edible streetscapes. Take
A visitor examines a young citrus tree in Sydney's inner urban Chippendale where the verges of Myrtle Street have been colonised by food producing plants in a trial edible planting with the City of Sydney.
a walk along a certain street in Stanmore, in Sydney’s Inner West, and you encounter the Australian bush food tree, the Illawarra Plum (Podocarpus elatus). This strange, plum red fruit with its seed on the outside can be picked and eaten raw or made into a sauce by those with a little culinary savvy. Walk down a particular street in Windsor, Brisbane, and you encounter another Australian bushfood serving as a verge planting, the macadamia nut. Then there are numerous species of lillypilly, the Syzygiums, that have been established as street trees and that yield edible fruit.
These examples may not be in large number, however they have been noted by urban gleaners.
Understanding council concerns
Street verge gardens are often spontaneous installations constructed without the approval of local government and often without the knowledge that councils might require notification of a proposal to plant the footpaths or that their approval may be needed.
Advocates of the edible planting of public space would do well to understand the concerns of councils, for whom it can come down to a question of public safety and council liability for accidents. Councils, after all, are responsible for plantings in public places and for footpaths.
To edge or not?
A difficulty for councils can arise where street verge gardeners erect a low edge around their gardens. Council staff might see this as a trip hazard and a potential source of injury claims against council, as it is local government which has responsibility for footpaths. There may also be the problem for council that a raised garden, even one raised a few centimetres above ground level by a low edge, constitutes a construction that requires permission.
Yet, without an edge around some verge gardens, mulch and soils can be washed into the gutter and down the stormwater system. This was the case with a bark-mulched verge garden in Coogee, NSW.
If construction on footpaths, even when it is only a low barrier, is not permitted for reasons of trip hazard and local government liability, the solution might be not to raise street verge gardens and leave them without an edge. This, however, leaves them open to grass invasion and is perhaps less aesthetically pleasing.
A model of verge garden as construction on public land comes from a householder in Marrickville who has erected a raised garden bed to above knee height and cultivates vegetables in it. It’s less of a trip hazard due to the height of the garden and it is visually contained as a neat construction. Thoughtfully, access passages have been left around the sides of the garden so that people can reach the street and their parked vehicles.
This Coogee verge has a few design challenges, such as stopping the washing away of the woodchip mulch during rain. In the absence of a low barrier to hold it in place, the mulch washes into the gutter and into the stormwater system. The paucity of plants in the garden creates a forlorn, untended appearance.
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Fruitfall
In discussion on the topic of verge planting, a council officer mentioned the potential issue of fruit falling from trees onto parked cars, or of pedestrians slipping on fruit left lying on the footpath and injuring themselves.
This, of course, is already a risk with the seed pods and heavy, seasonal leaf fall of some ornamental street trees. Think of the large, round seed pods of the London Plane trees that line some of our streets and their clusters of seed pods that cluster on footpaths and clog up gutters.
An edible streetscape of citrus trees occupies the street verge outside Glandore Community Centre in Adelaide, South Australia. The trees are maintained by a community group and do not interfere with people exiting their vehicles or with pedestrians walking along the footpath.
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The question of maintaining and harvesting
Someone from the landscaping staff of a Western Sydney council said to me that he is not opposed to the plant
It’s true that most council grounds staff have no training in the maintenance of fruit and nut trees or skills such as pruning, pest management and harvesting. He though the idea might be more viable were a community group to take charge of maintaining and collecting the harvest so it doesn’t fall and rot on the ground. He suggested that councils would be better waiting for a community group to approach them about planting edible trees than council taking the initiative to plant them themself.
It is not only fruit and nut trees alone that are now being planted in street verge gardens. Vegetable gardens are making an appearance on our footpaths.
Abandoned gardens
The potential for gardeners to abandon their verge plantings is something that plays on council minds. What happens when the householder moves home, more than one council staffer has asked?
It’s a reasonable question because there is no guarantee that the new occupant will be interested in maintaining a verge garden. One solution would be for the departing resident to return the verge to lawn, and this is a solution favoured by some council staff.
The verge outside Perth City Farm in Western Australia is densely planted as a minimal maintenance landscape.
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Council attitude — helpful of not?
The City of Sydney approved verge planting in its policy on community gardening which it adopted in 2010. Other councils believe that a separate policy on verge planting is required. Sydney’s Waverley and Randwick councils, for example, already have policies on verge planting that require those planning to cultivate the footpath to submit details, including a planting plan, to council to gain approval.
It is doubtful that many verge gardeners are aware of such requirements and it only takes a walk around the streets to find numerous, spontaneous verge plantings the initiative of public spirited citizens who thought they would beautify the urban streetscape. Ornamentals, native plants and trees are what is commonly encountered but edible species have joined them in recent years.
Given the increasing popularity of verge planting, perhaps it is time for more councils to adopt policies that ensure the gardens meet minimum design and construction standards.
A Clovelly verge planting occupies a narrow space between car park and an environmental restoration project on the sloping land behind, which features native plants. The location of the garden does not impede pedestrians. Note that the garden beds are edged to contain their mulch.
The realities of verge gardens
There are a few things the would-be verge cultivator might contemplate before turning the footpath turf. The items that follow are all drawn from experience and are worth thinking about.
Reality 1: Road verges are public land and produce might be taken.
A friend, who has long maintained a verge garden in the Inner West, had planted a dwarf orange tree which was showing great promise as its one and only piece of fruit turned from green to bright orange… and then disappeared. But this didn’t faze her — she had expected it.
What this demonstrates is the reality that the street verge cultivator has no control over people seeing the produce as public property and has no property rights to what is grown on the verge. The verge is accessible to anyone and nothing can be enforced to stop the public helping themselves to what is grown there. The verge might be thought of as an extension of the home garden in planting terms, however it is not an extension of the home garden in legal terms because it is on public land.
Most verge gardeners are happy to share what they grow and expect that people will take some. Perhaps a little sign suggesting people take edible leaves or fruit when ripe but not pick the entire plant would go some way to minimising damage.
Some street verge gardeners regard their plantings as ‘forage gardens’. In cases like this, the street verge garden could be regarded as edible landscaping.
Reality 2: Neighbours and passers-by may well complain
Not everyone will like your turning footpath lawn into footpath food. They may complain to council about the presence of the garden or parts of it.
One case I know of was a complaint about the clumping grass, Lomandra, overhanging a Sydney Inner West footpath. The householder was told by council to remove the plant. Yet, in Manly where I used to live, a householder had planted the verge to the native Malaleuca (tea tree) and some of the branches protruded at head height and blocked access to parked vehicles. It is a wonder that nobody complained about that. It would have been a proactive move to prune the offending branches.
Then there is the problem of the personal sense of aesthetics. What is a beautiful vergeside food garden to some is something ugly to others. Aesthetics, of course, is no basis for local government decisions on verge gardens because aesthetics allows no objective measure.
In Fremantle, leafy green edibles have been planted below young street trees. Note the irrigation hose to water the plants. The street features other verge plantings of food, ornamentals and native plants.
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Reality 3: You verge garden may be vandalised
This I experienced while living down by Botany Bay in Sydney’s southern suburbs. We had planted the area around the malaleuca street tree — it was a planter that protruded into the roadway — with hardy herbs and a pineapple. Later rather than sooner, the pineapple started to fruit and this we watched as it got bigger and bigger… until, that is, a young boy with a cricket bat thought the pineapple fruit would make a fine cricket ball.
Fruit tree theft is already something that occurs in community gardens. There is no reason why young fruit trees will not disappear from verge gardens.
Other vandalism may be less sporting than the fate of the unripe pineapple mentioned above and may result from people who are just maliciously-minded. Uncommon it might be, the possibility of vandalism is something verge gardeners have to live with.
Reality 4: Streets are dangerous places
Managing a verge garden could involve stepping out onto the street to access your planting. There are clear dangers here, especially if you are working with traffic-unaware children.
This is the sort of thing that arouses the interest of council occupational health and safety officers and it is something that could discourage council from approving verge plantings.
Although the risk of being hit by a vehicle may be small (most adults are traffic-aware and take care crossing the street) it is none-the-less a low level risk that should be kept in mind.
Design considerations for verge gardens
We can gain an overview of the design considerations involved in planning verge gardens through a needs/functions/yields analysis. The purpose of this exercise is to build a picture of what is involved in verge gardening then asking if we can supply the garden’s needs, make use of its functions and use its yields.
Needs
Let’s consider needs first. The critical question we ask ourselves is this: What are the needs of verge gardening and how can I provide those needs?
Here’s a list that you can add to…
Need 1: Access to and from vehicles and the street
A verge garden that abuts the gutter may impede people getting into and out of their vehicles.
The need here is for sufficient space so that people:
- can open their car door
- can easily get into and out of their car.
This is even more of an important consideration where those are aged people who cannot nimbly step around plantings or who use a walking aid.
Leave a sufficiently wide strip unplanted or left to lawn between the gutter and the outer edge of your verge garden.
A vergeside vegetable garden beside a carpark near the beach at Clovelly, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, this is an example of verge planting where aesthetics have been considered. Messy and untidy verge plantings are likely to result in complaints to councils.
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Need 2: Access from footpath to street
Do not occupy the entire width of your property alignment with a verge garden. Leave access to the street at either side of your verge planting and/or a path through it.
A width of 1.2 metres would be minimum. The space should be wide enough for people to manouvre a wheelchair, pram or walking aid between the paved footpath and the road edge.
Need 3: Thoughtful species selection
Herbs, vegetables and shrub fruits (such as berry fruits) are not the species in question here because of their low growth form and smaller root systems. Rather, it is trees that must be thoughtfully selected for kerbside planting, such as fruit and nut trees.
As well as horticultural considerations such as planting species that are suited to climate, the selection of edible fruit or nut trees should avoid those that:
- are known to have vigourous root systems that could could lift up paved footpath and road surfaces and create irregularities that could pose a hazard
- are likely to grow tall enough to contact and damage overhead cables
- have vigourous root systems that could damage buried services, such as water, gas and sewer pipes.
Find out the location of buried services before you make a verge garden.
Need 4: Prune plants so that their foliage does not overhang the footpath
Here, I am suggesting the selection of appropriate plants and the pruning of your plants so that their branches and foliage so not protrude over the footpath at head height or below. Trees branching higher overhead may be useful for casting shade onto the walkway in the heat of summer.
As the trees grow, gardeners can prune the lower branches that could intrude over the footpath or road. This is done while the trees are young so as to ‘lift’ the canopy and enccourage branching higher above the ground.
Remember that parents push strollers carrying young children along the footpath and children ride scooters and bicycles along it. The last thing they want, quite reasonably, is for their children to by brushed in the face by overhanging foliage.
Overhanging and protruding foliage may also be a deterrent to aged people, especially those using walking aids.
The new streetscape of Myrtle Street, Chippendale, is far more productive than that which preceded it. An example of edible landscaping that includes ornamental plants (habitat for wildlife) as well as food species, the trees and shrubs lend a pleasant ambience to the narrow Victorian era street lined with old terrace houses.
Need 5: The need for care and maintenance
Planters of public land such as street verges have a duty of care in maintaining their plantings so that they are safe, look good and do not become vectors for the spread of fruit, vegetable and other plant pests. They must maintain their plantings.
Herbs and vegetables, fruits and nuts planted on the kerbside need as much care as those grown in a home gardens.
Care for kerbside planting includes:
- regular watering
- mulching, to reduce evaporative water loss from the soil and to reduce water consumption
- the application of compost or other organic fertiliser to stimulate healthy growth
- monitoring and treatment of insect pest or plant disease infestation
- pruning of trees and shrubs to prevent their encroaching on pedestrian access.
Need 6: Aesthetics
Verge gardens have to look good, irrespective of the gardener’s attitude to aesthetics because gardens thought to look bad will likely result in complaints to council.
Concern about neatness and appearance, perhaps over-concern in some cases, is a social reality. It’s true that people project onto others their personal values about aesthetics, however this is something we have to live with. What is riskier is the likelyhood that council, if it intervenes, will have no objective criteria to assess aesthetics.
What does all of this mean for the verge gardener?
First, it means that, where you have a large area of verge, do not attempt to plant the entire area unless you are confident you can keep the entire garden planted and maintained. Start small, consolidate the area you start with then move on in small steps, consolidating as you go. This way, through consolidating what you do in your small steps, you reduce maintenance needs because things have been done properly.
I came across an example of what appears to be people taking on more than they can maintain on a Coogee street verge. A wide verge beside an apartment block had been mulched with bark chip but was occupied by a paucity of vegetables. Most of the garden was bare, suggesting neglect.
Edible additions to amenity plantings in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs are young banana trees and a monstera (broad leaf in foreground), which produces the edible 'fruit salad' fruit. This is an example of how the thoughtful combination of ornamental, native and edible plants can produce a hybrid planting system that creates wildlife habitat, provides a pleasant ambience for people and yields food.
Functions
Let’s turn now to the functions of kerbside gardens. Functions describe the indirect benefits of the plantings and the processes that take place within them and their immediate environment. They do not refer to their direct value of the plantings to people, something we will consider later.
The critical question here is this: How can I maintain and increase, if appropriate, the beneficial functions of my verge planting?
Function 1: Provision of environmental services
Like any ecosystem, that of an edible plant association established in a verge garden provides the environmental services commonly associated with plants:
- filtration of air
- slowing of rainfall runoff and assisting it infiltrate as soil water
- provision of habitat for insects, birds and small reptiles
- carbon sequestration in organically-rich soils.
This requires establishing a diversity of plant types.
Funciton 2: The productive use of urban land
Kerbside gardening makes productive use of land in the city. It puts to practical use small patches of land that are otherwise neglected or planted to simplified plant communities — such as lawn — that are unproductive or that may consume excessive water and fossil fuels in their maintenance, as do unproductive verges.
Edible kerbside plantings value urban land more than most other uses.
Function 3: Boosting biodiversity
As mixed edible plantings, our verge gardens attract insects and other small animal species that interact through food webs. This is the basis of their biodiversity value. Flowering species attract bees, providing habitat for pollinators in the city.
Biodiversity functions can be enhanced where open pollinated, non-hybrid vegetable and herb species are established. These can become a seed source for distribution to other gardeners, spreading the availability of species that make up our agricultural biodiversity, a type of biodiversity as threatened as that of native species, if not more so.
Function 3: New ways to engage with public space
A further function of kerbside plantings is less to do with plants and more to do with people. It is this: taking responsibility for a kerbside garden provides a new means for people to engage with public space. It is a means of assuming greater responsibility for a neighbourhood and encourages the role of ‘engaged citizen’.
Public space is often viewed as the sole responsibility of local government. Citizens make minimal use of the space and often feel no responsibility for its care even though some councils expect people to mow the verge on their property boundary. Thus, local government adopts a managerial attitude as a service provider and sees little potential for a public role in open space management.
The rapid spread of community food gardens on public open space is changing this attitude, slowly. So, too, could verge gardening because it requires people to take responsibility for them.
It is in this sense that the gardens enhance public engagement with public lands. Local government might choose to see this as developing the capacity of communities to take a more proactive role in public space management.
A pawpaw rises above the shrubbery in the Myrtle Street, Chippendale verge plantings.
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Function 4: Enhancing urban amenity
Urban amenity is the deriving of some often intangible benefit from the built environment.
Kerbside food production increases the amenity of urban areas through the provision of:
- foods to supplement a household’s diet
- habitat and environmental services
- urban revegetation and the development of the urban tree canopy and understorey
- improved visual aesthetics of streetscapes
- improved food security for households and, if adopted on a larger scale, of the city.
Yields
A yield is anything that is directly used by people.
The main yield of kerbside gardening are the foods that are grown and eaten by the gardeners or picked by passers-by.
A secondary yield is the knowledge and physical exercise that comes with the experience of kerbside gardening.
Already a reality
Kerbside gardens are already a reality although their number is small at present.
If present signs are correct and there is a growing interest in taking over the footpath nature strip to grow food, then the time may come when local government and community associations publish design and planting guidelines.
The sooner this happens, the better.
The citrus of the Glandore orchard verge blends visually with long-established eucalypts.
July 16th, 2010 at 3:00 am
John McBain Says:
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:32 am
Raised edges for verge gardens may be prohibited under local gov regulations.
Something I once wrote about verges for a British group:
The Long Paddock.
Two hundred years ago, the south west of Western Australia was covered in towering Eucalypt forest and roamed by Aboriginal people. Gradually trees were cleared for residential development and to allow agriculture and for timber – in fact much of the forest was used in the London Underground Railway.
The clearing occurred over much of Australia and resulted in a network of roads to connect properties and towns. There road reserves included vacant land between the road and fencing along the boundaries of individual farms and were known as the long paddock because when feed was short for livestock, farmers would let their animals out there for a feed. They truly were long paddocks as they started at the front gate and wound all the way across Australia, although no farmer used the whole paddock !!
I was a biodynamic producer in the south west of Western Australia, and just before hay season each year we would cut some of our green pasture for making compost.
I have been living in Perth for a couple of years and setting up compost heaps, worm farms and gardens on the 1000 square meter residential block I am renting – unlike London, much of Perth is known for its large house blocks.
Perth also has wide road verges that are mainly filled with introduced lawn species that grow quickly in our Mediterranean climate and require fertilising, spraying, watering and mowing. These lawn verges are part of the serious environmental challenges facing Perth like shortage of water and the impact of pollutants and fertilisers in our waterways.
The verges are mainly vacant land under local council tenure and are used only for occasional car parking and council collections of green waste and unwanted household goods. I’ve never seen one of Australia’s famous barbeques on these spacious areas.
They are the urban equivalent of the long paddock and represent an under-utilised land resource – our verge is about 80 square meters.
One of the challenges in handling community waste is finding ways to treat it as a resource – with unused land and compostable materials it is not difficult.
It costs $30 to dump a 6? by 4? trailer load of lawn clippings at the local waste transfer station which will then go by truck to a waste management site in the hills 24 km to the east for landfill or composting.
For the community where the lawn clippings are mowed, this has several costs:
1. The fee payable to the transfer station.
2. The downtime from driving to the transfer station for the contractor.
3. The transport of the ‘waste’ from the transfer station to the waste management site.
4. The loss of a resource which is value added by another community or organisation.
5. Greenhouse gas emissions, road wear and traffic congestion from the transport.
6. Fertilisers, soil conditioners and mulches that could be made from the green waste.
7. Purchase of food and other plants that could be grown in composted clippings.
The only aspect of the local community that benefits from the above is the convenience of residents being able to accept no responsibility for waste generated by their lifestyle.
There is a state-of-the-art composting plant being constructed at the transfer station by Organic Resources Technology– when operating it will eliminate 3. and reduce 5.
The brief analysis of costs above shows that although this will be a step forward in waste management it may not be the best solution.
Making compost and earthworm farms at home requires a level of commitment that the demands of modern life do not always allow, and there are obvious efficiencies of scale in composting at a handful of sites in the Perth suburban area, or preferably at a local community level.
We have been inspired by City Farm ( http://www.menofthetrees.com.au/cityfarm.html ) and have an arrangement with local lawn mowing and garden contractors that they drop off ‘green waste’ on our verge, where we have allowed it to sheet compost, and added a few worms. We also use it as a resource for compost heaps, worm farms and gardens in our back and front yards.
So far we estimate we have saved about 75 trailer loads or 150 m3 of ‘green resource’ going to the transfer station and possibly landfill.
Our aim is to demonstrate that this resource can be used on presently under-utilised urban land to grow organic food cost-effectively (eg using volunteers, retired people, work-for-the-dole and prison release labour) for the needy in our society.
One of the major environmental challenges in Western Australia is the introduced plants that have become intrusive weeds – and one of the worst in Perth is the lawn species Cooch grass. When we started ‘farming the verge’ there was Cooch present and we laid down several inches of tree mulch with over 1 metre of lawn clippings. With the exception of the areas immediately adjoining the road, driveways and the footpath this was successful in killing the Cooch.
Our experiences with verge farming have been interesting – initially the reaction of passers by varied from bemusement to disgust. My partner is Aboriginal, and one group of young lads was heard to call our place a “boongs camp”. Given the impact of many conventional gardens on the natural environment, and the comparatively low ‘ecological footprint’ of Aboriginal lifestyles, we chose to take that as a complement.
As the number and variety of plants on our verge and in our front yard increased, and because we maintained the country attitude of saying hello to passers by, attitudes changed from bemusement and criticism to interest, participation and respect.
In considering improved land use on the verges, the need to grow more native plants in urban areas and visibility when using driveways I did the design below. The productive and environmentally sensitive use of verge lands goes to the heart of perceived Aussie values – many regard a non productive introduced street tree as a sacrosanct right!
However, within the diagram the low garden becomes an area for convenient and sustainable conversion of waste to food in balance with adjacent native plants.
August 3rd, 2010 at 5:42 am
Could your organisation help our Rotary Club?
We will be holding our second Spring Fair at Forestville from 9:00AM to 3:00PM on the 4th September next (perhaps look at our website to gain some idea of the last one). I plan to man a small table to gather names for a petition to the Warringah Council to permit the Rotary Club of Frenchs Forest to start the construction of Warringah’s second Community Garden, in Forestville, within 6 months. I would very much welcome any support that your organisation could give us on that day, in responding to questions from any members of the public, and offering advice to we Rotarians on how to deal with a bureaucratic council. Any handouts or pamphlets to give away would be appreciated – I am intending to re-print some of the material on this website to fill the gap.
Would appreciate your comments in the near future.
Cheers
David McAdam
Secretary, Rotary Club of Frenchs Forest
August 3rd, 2010 at 6:14 am
Hi, I was wondering if anyone can recommend a consultant(s) who can asist Local Government in developing guidelines to cover nature strips gardening and/as well as community gardening.
August 3rd, 2010 at 11:40 pm
Thanks for this fabulous information Russ and co. Given the interest I see all around in verge planting, this post should be compulsory reading for all potential VG’s (verge gardeners) I have put a link on the Transition Sydney site to this post.
Cheers
Peter
August 4th, 2010 at 6:26 am
Hi Katherine…
VERGE PLANTING
City of Sydney has approved verge planting in their recently-adopted policy on community gardening and verge planting, but the City has not developed design guidlines. Randwick and Waverley councils (Sydney)allow the practice but require a plan from the gardener for council go-ahead. Other councils have a more ad-hoc approach to verge plantings.
One point to consider is your council’s policies on construction on public land. I am aware of a case where a verge gardener erected a low barrier around their garden that ran afoul of council because they thought it a trip hazard and because private constructions — which is apparently what a low edge around a garden is in that local government area — on public land are not permitted.
The design recommendations I make in the article are derived from conversations with local government officers as well as verge gardeners. There is often a disconnect between these two, with some verge planters taking a gung-ho approach and not considering access and other issues, and some councils sending mixed messages about verge gardening.
I published the design recommendations because of the rapid growth of verge planting in Sydney. Seems something of the kind might be happening in Melbourne too – just had a phone conversation today with a journalist from ABC Local Radio Melbourne about the practice. She mentioned something about a kerfumple in City of Port Phillip around verge gardening.
Sydney’s Mosman Council, it’s a rather upmarket, affluent local government area, prohibits anything resembling a private garden on the footpath but allows trees to be established.
Verge gardening is a community initiative in need of guidelines. If these are not adopted, then we can expect some fractious encounters between gardeners and pedestrians. The practice is growing rather rapidly and now is the time for local government to publish design guidelines. Good to see that your council is leading in this.
COMMUNITY GARDENING POLICY
Please download and use ideas from the local government policy direction documents I have prepared as a community gardening consultant to councils. You can find these on this website. I am presently finalising a community garden policy and gardeners’ guide for Randwick City Council.
…Russ Grayson
August 12th, 2010 at 5:28 am
Has anyone on the network looked into soil contamination issues of growing food on verges?
I’m concerned about growing food in soil that’s been exposed to decades of car exhaust, when the minimal soil testing we’ve done in Marrickville has shown up lead and chemical residue issues. I’d like to believe that building up the soil (i.e. no dig method) would help – but does anyone know if the lead stays put in the original soil?
I know DECC was supposed to have done some research on food crops and lead contamination – but I haven’t been able to find the research.
Can anyone help?
August 19th, 2010 at 3:25 am
Lead in soil is a complicated matter and should be looked into if you’re going to be growing veggies in verges. This article explains the issue:
http://www.grayenvironmental.com/lead_in_garden_soil.htm
I’m sure these people could help you if you need further advice. They’ve been recommended to me:
http://www.sesl.com.au
I know this may be a bit heavy handed but a CSIRO book may have some answers for you and may be available in some libraries:
http://www.publish.csiro.au/pid/5352.htm
August 19th, 2010 at 3:37 am
Here a few more great articles:
http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG2543.html
http://www.uri.edu/ce/factsheets/sheets/lead.html