Camperdown Commons

By Josh Ives

Have you ever gone away one weekend to the countryside? Perhaps happened upon a quaint wee cottage for rent and just found bliss in the peace and quiet? You may have even briefly fantasised about leaving it all behind for good – getting in touch with nature, living off the land you tow. You could even learn to ride horseback! But then reality slaps you across the face, and almost as quickly as it starts, is replaced by the sinking reality that your life is a million miles away. Everyone and everything you know is back in the big city. Still, it’s fun to daydream right?

Pocket City Farms seems to think so. The difference is, they have found a way to turn it into a reality…of sorts! They are taking the best of both worlds by identifying unused city space and turning it into a fully operational urban mini-farm. Yeah, that’s right! Imagine The Farmer Wants A Wife, except this time, the farmer is a big-city lad working at PwC who spends his weekends tending his crops!

I may have been over-exaggerating there slightly, but you get my point. Still, it’s pretty awesome to see what this little not-for-profit is doing. Their latest ‘find’ is the old Camperdown Bowling Club, and they’re working around the clock to turn it into a sustainable vegetable farm.

Like anything in life worth doing, it hasn’t been an easy task. All sorts of tests have needed to be run to ensure the produce is fit for consumption. The soil has needed to be examined for chemical and other element absorption, but success is 99% perseverance and boy, did they do just that! Fighting the lack of soil nutrition, owners’ Michael Zagoridis and partner Emma Bowen built a makeshift compost heap out of green manure, which basically gives the soil the good stuff it needs to flourish as a flower-bed. Now, I don’t speak farmer, and my fingers are hardly green but I have to tip my cap to them for having a crack at an operation that most would consider fruitless. It’s paid off – the mini-city farm is now turning over a fair amount of produce and bearing superfoods such as kale, parsley, baby spinach and carrots, just to name a few.