Gardening is often a solitary activity, but it can also be a brilliant way of creating community.
The same is true of farms, which in the past were traditionally based around a family or a group of families. It’s only as modern agriculture has dominated that we’ve seen a shift away from family farms.
Most food is now grown under a corporate model of larger farms, more intensive farming, more machinery, and fewer employees.
Well, that’s not how we do things!
In our opinion, food is best grown in community, just as it’s better to eat with friends than to eat alone.
We often have a lot of people at our farm. Sometimes we stop for a moment when we’re out in the garden and mentally check in with who’s here.
There can easily be 10 or more people working away quietly (or noisily) around the property. Some together, some alone—but all industriously working towards the same goal—growing food.
Making gardening less solitary
Our Grow Great Fruit members – and gardeners everywhere – are doing exactly the same thing in their own gardens at home. But it can be a bit isolating, so how can gardening be used to bring people together?
One way is through community gardens and garden clubs. We’re connected with a few community gardens and have given numerous workshops on a range of topics.
Community gardens are a fantastic way for people to come together over their love of gardening. While growing food is usually the central theme (and is definitely important) the real gold often comes from the edges.
People work together, friendships slowly build over the weeding, and skills are shared. Stories, seeds and fruit are traded. Community grows.
Building a community of like-minded gardeners is also one of the driving forces behind Grow Great Fruit. We didn’t have much of a community when we were learning how to grow organic fruit, so we created one.
The program is specifically designed to create a feeling of community between our members. In reality, they’re growing fruit on their own (or with their families) in far-flung gardens all around Australia. Being a member of Grow Great Fruit gives them a central place to connect with each other no matter where they live.
Bringing community back into farming
While we’re not fans of big corporate farms, we’re all for running farms as businesses. And we’re definitely in favour of farms being profitable. You can’t farm for passion alone (well you can, but not for long), and it’s important that farmers get paid a fair wage for their work.
But the soul of a farm comes from the people. People working, gathering, eating, talking, and living their lives on and around the land.
If you sacrifice that for the sake of more productivity and profit, you completely change the nature of the place.
The benefits of growing food together
We believe you can have it all—productivity, profit, AND community.
Since we set up the Harcourt Organic Farming Coop here on our farm, we’ve really appreciated the value of small farms and farmers working side by side, in the same space.
There are so many ways we can (and do) directly contribute to each other’s businesses. Marketing and selling together, sharing resources, borrowing stuff, and supplying each other with yummy food are just the beginning.
There’s also a really important and kind of unexpected loveliness that flows from just being here together.
A typical day at the farm might see the Gung Hoe’s in their patch harvesting veggies, with their dogs mucking around nearby. Hugh’s out on the tractor fencing. Katie’s in the orchard with the Orchard Keepers teaching a group of vollies how to thin fruit. Tessa’s out milking, and Pa (Katie’s dad) is in the nursery looking after the trees with Lizzie (Katie’s sister).
How’s that for community?
Three generations, five businesses, and 13 people. Skills being learned (and passed on), friends being made, great conversations being had, lots of work being done, money being earned, and a whole lot of organic food being produced!