Seniors Day at Geelong West Community Garden
“A community garden is a place where people come together to grow fresh vegetables, share gardening knowledge, make new friends, and take part in a creative outdoor activity.”
Kevin Ayrey, Landscape Architect, City of Yarra
Community Gardens are a valuable resource for the local community in Geelong West, and provide many other services apart from locally grown organic Vegetables.
This was clearly seen at the wonderful Open Day at Geelong West Community Garden on the as part of Seniors Week. It was great to see the children from Ashbey Primary School interacting with the seniors of Geelong West.
My main query was where were the seniors? These older folk seemed remarkably spritely and energetic-I put that down to them all being keen gardeners, gardening as an activity is well known for keeping you young at heart and fit and healthy. Interestingly, research has shown that interaction with gardens-even just visiting reduces your chance of dementia by 20%.
It was a good afternoon, the students from Ashbey were polite and helpful handing out cake and sushi, and the seniors really enjoyed looking at the gardens and sharing their knowledge.
Many came from over community gardens such as Grovedale, and chit chat on the importance of community gardens, how to grow better potatoes and what is that plant, were had over tea and cake.
A raffle was drawn and prizes of pot plants and watering frogs were given out.
The gardens will be open again to the general public for Pako Festa.
Maggie Ryan and Katie Gillett enjoying the 'high tea' at Geelong West Coomunity GArden
