It was 21 years ago, before community gardens were on the radar of a slow food movement, that a vision to transform a "gravel wasteland" carpark alongside the busy Pacific Highway at Belmont into a place where life flourishes was realised.
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Chris Brown, who has been running the centre for six years, still marvels at the large scale accomplishment of a small community group.
"It was a huge community developed project back then," Brown says. "Before it was cool."
The garden was one of the early projects of the Belmont Neighbourhood Centre, turning a lifeless patch of earth into a kitchen garden that will provide for a special community luncheon early next month.
"It was intentionally put together to provide a space for the community to be together in an informal way," Brown explains. "It's the kind of place where someone pops their head out of a spinach patch and says 'hello'. There's more value than people think in someone popping up out of the spinach patch and saying 'how are you?'."
About 30 regular gardeners tend the array of beds, and programs are run for people gaining work skills.
There is never a shortage of work to do, as the garden is self-sufficient. They grow their own sugarcane for mulch, make fertiliser from the rotting leaves of comfrey plants and produce honey. Even soil is made on-site, mostly from lawn clippings dropped off by local gardening contractors.
"We want to keep that fertility and those nutrients in our neighbourhood," Brown says.
Brown begins his garden tours away from the tended beds, in an adjoining bush patch. Here native trees give food and provide homes for animals.
One of his favourite moments at the garden was when showing a group of school children around. As he was pointing to a wooden possum box up a tree, a baby possum popped its head out, as if on queue.
"It's a rare occurrence," Brown says.
"This area is part of the garden's life force. It's not just about growing fruit and vegetables.
"The thing that made me fall in love with community gardens is that they're diverse places, they're filled with life.
"Sometimes dragonflies do laps in the sky above us."
Other days visitors have been thrilled as a kaleidoscope of Common Cockshafer butterflies swarm around them. The butterflies come to the garden to suck the sap out of a particular tree's leaves, rendering them distasteful to birds.
"Which means they get to fly around here being beautiful and the birds won't eat them," Brown says.
"This is our little slice of heaven. But it was born out of a gravel car park."
The Habitat in Harmony community luncheon is on Thursday, June 6, at 359 Pacific Highway, Belmont North. Bookings essential on 4947 0031.
