Curtin Veggie Garden
Curtin Veggie Garden: Table of Contents
Figure 1. Current Curtin Veggie Garden.
Source: Personal digital photo Louise Kaestner (2024).
Figure 2. Curtin Veggie Garden site on Curtin Campus in Bentley.
Source: Google Maps (2024).
The Curtin Veggie Garden Prequel
Once upon a time, there was a man with a vision called Peter Cope. This man created and maintained a veggie garden for about 10 years, including a website and two Facebook accounts. I found the start date in the Curtin Veggie garden blooming (2010) article and the end date I worked out as 2016 from a Facebook post.I don't know what happened to him. Though I've asked questions, I get no straight answers. All I know is he isn't at Curtin, as I've searched his name through the Outlook autofill, and his social media at LInkedIn isn't up-to-date.
Two exciting article's appear in Curtin's Campus and Global Community section on the establishment of the community garden and it's first harvest. The first article Curtin students open veggie garden (2009) introduces Peter Cope and the veggie garden. It talks about how housing services, which now falls under the Unilodge remit, helped establish this garden for students in need. Furthermore, it elaborates on cooking competitions for what the students plucked from the garden. Peter Cope speaks on volunteering in the second article Curtin Veggie garden blooming (2010). He discusses composting and other sustainable matters.
For a garden that ran for just over 10 years, 2 paragraphs is all I can give you because that is all the information available. At the CVGVs The Curtin University Vegie Garden Volunteers there is a final post saying they are no longer there. The blog itself seemed well maintained. If I try to investigate too far, the little page with a corner flopping over one eye shows up and tells me that my request can't be fulfilled. The entire think smells of a mystery. It's like an X-File's episode of an unexplained disappearance. Were aliens involved? We shall never know.
Curtin Veggie Garden Now
Old Curtin Veggie Garden now.
Source: The Gnawnster YouTube (2024).
It's warm and not yet 10am. I decided to stroll the campus and commit to some non-human interviews for Skywalkermas (Christmas) day. The interviewees? The prominent mini-gardens of Curtin Campus in Bentley. However, I am not speaking about them here. Here is where I address the centrepiece: The Curtin Veggie Garden that no longer is but could be again.
I lift my phone up. The screen is dark to conserve battery. I'm not sure if I'm recording or not, as I've already fumbled some interviews. The old Curtin Veggie Garden is at the south end of the campus. If you refer to the google map above, you will see a desolate area of land. That's the place I'm talking about.
I stand before the cyclone fencing. It's interlinking wire and three barb-wire strips at the top fill me with a feeling of trepidation. The campus is silent, perfect for me and my social-anxiety. I passed a Curtin Safer Communities Vehicle a couple minutes earlier, lurking in the parking lot. This adds to the sensation that perhaps I am seeking something forbidden. After all, I am poking and prodding at the carcass of the, once thriving, Curtin Veggie Garden.
You will see the video is for over 18's. I say a couple of swear words during the filming as I talk to myself, the crow and the tree. It almost sounds like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. If I push at the gates, could I stumble into a magical world of a sustainable future? If I push at the gates, will the security guards haul me off and a black strike land across my academic record like a blow to my face?
I am filled with sorrow as I stare at the container to the left and the tree in the centre. The fence is between us. It's as if clothes keep me separate from the lover I want. The chastisy belt of bureaucracy grips at my waist, preventing what was and what could be. The Earth beckons to my fingers. I know it will be hot and dusty as I work the ground. Their is no nourishment left in the dirt. What joy it would be to uplift the Earth, feeding it with soil and worms, giving it the attention it so deserves.
What for, do you ask, do I stare at this empty lot, yearning for access? Curtin Veggie Garden was there, once upon a time. It is no longer there, but the land is, as yet, unused. Earlier this year I visited the Freemantle Social Farm. The plot of land before me is half the size of what is at Freemantle. So much could be planted there. Imagine tackling SDG2: No Hunger in real time with a Curtin Veggie Garden? It is so much better than talking about it. The land is there. I know that money is available, both within Curtin and through external grants. All I need is permission to use the land and some extraordinary good luck in securing funding to get it running and continueing.
As your fingers caress your mouse and your eyes stroll through the pages of this blog, bear in mind that this is an asset mapping assignment for a unit. However, I don't want it to stop there. I tackled the proposal part of my Curtin Veggie Garden earlier this year for another related unit. A vital piece of the Curtin Veggie Garden is a website, this one. The garden is not just about me, it's about everybody at Curtin University. I've dedicated part of the website to future volunteers and connosieurs. This is to showcase their stories and share their challenges and triumphs. It also address the educational component of SDG2. One can eat bags of chips and lollies all day long until they are full in the belly, but that isn't nutrition. People will share their budget recipes on how they use the harvest from the Curtin Veggie Garden.
I have a Google account set up. Documentation is important for continuity. The Google Drive connected to the account will be full of ideas, digital assets and procedures, should the garden ever get underway, because the Curtin Veggie Garden will be sustainable. This means that it will live beyond my schooling at Curtin. Though it will be a veggie garden, it will also be a community garden, run by the region of Curtin University Bentley Campus by the students and staff and for the students and staff.