Community garden project beginnings CLICK HERE
General overview and Goals
The outcome for this project is to create a publicly and mobility challenged accessible parkland and walking tracks which are safe for the Kingscliff community. The parklands and walking tracks have two main focuses. Parklands will be best to families and the Kingscliff community to come as to allow younger children to play, relax and enjoy their surroundings. The walking tracks are intended to be a place of contemplation and sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of our busy daily life. Both areas will provide a sensory experience. The tracks will be focused on being disabled friendly with sculptured features located along the walk.
The church currently owns Lot 7 which is 7 acres of land which will be partially developed for this project as well as 24 – 30 sand street Kingscliff ( refer to section V for more details). Currently the church building is situated on 24 – 26 sand street with a basic parking lot on 28 – 30 sand street.
The project will consist of:
One acre of Parklands
Vegetable gardens
2x picnic table areas
Four acres of native bushland walking tracks
One carpark with reserved disabled and pram parking
One fenced children's play area
Site and Physical Planning
Parklands
The parklands will be established in the first acre of lot 7, located behind the current C3 kingscliff church. The parklands will be predominantly a slopped open grass area, with large, timber edged garden beds. The garden beds will be filled primarily with native flowers and selected exotics to provide ground coverage. In the northern end of the parklands community vegitable gardens will be established
The intention is to:
create 4 large garden bed ( 20 feet by 4 feet each), providing a barrier between the grass of the parklands and treeline of the walking tracks.
2 sets of picnic tables
one vegetable garden
access way to walking tracks
Picnic tables and vegetable garden
The picnic table areas and vegetable gardens are located inside the Parklands. The two picnic tables will overlook the parklands on two levelled sites. The vegetable gardens will be located to the north of the parklands on a site that was previously used for horticulture. At the end of the vegetable garden there will be 3(three) compost/green waste bays.
This project is starting as a blank canvas. Look below to see the current progress
Before:
A pretty field of weeds and these lovely pink flowers in the foreground.
And trees. Lots and lots of trees.
Before:
Surveying the main areas we wanted clearing.
Before:
Dense and unkempt- but not for long!
Pity the mower billowed smoke. Sorry environment and neighbours! Can only work with what you have on hand.
After:
Mowed!
...and another shot. We can't wait to get stuck back into this project!
The first stage of the project that we began is the parklands, that consisted of:
Slashing and clearing the basic level of the weeds, in some places they were 1.6m deep. Jims Mowing (my brother in law) did the initial clearing. Then my wife and I raked up weeds, sticks, rocks and branches, throwing it all in the wheelbarrow, and dumping each load. The ride on mowing wasn't able to get too close to the ground in places, so that meant we worked quite hard doing our best to clear it out from years of neglect, fallen branches and sadly, rubbish dumping.
With this done, and new mower blades, we are optimistic that the next run through will not be as difficult.
The next stage will be contacting the councils environmental officer to discuss removal of several trees, including the weed trees such as the Umbrella trees and those dropping branches. Removal of those trees will make the area safer and easier to maintain and for every tree we remove we will be planting three(3) to replace it along the walking tracks along with denser native trees that will offer shade and attract wildlife.
Keep an eye out for more updates as this project progresses and I hope that this inspires you all to begin your own gigantic projects.
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