GROWING vegetables is a way of life for many city gardeners who want to produce healthy food, combat high prices and reduce their carbon footprint.
But not everyone has the room to grow vegies, so people turn to allotments or community gardens - popular in England, and now flourishing in Melbourne - to create their potagers (kitchen gardens).
Traditionally, these plots were the domain of retirees who filled their days pottering around and chatting with their greenthumb neighbours.
Today, though, growing vegetables is more serious gardening business as people come together to share their food and culture in an organic and chemical-free environment.
Age is no barrier. At the Ringwood Community Garden, which celebrates its 30th year in March, the youngest member is nine and the oldest an octogenarian.
Laura Bermingham is a grade 4 student at Great Ryrie Primary in Heathmont. Like her father, Bryan, she is a member of the Ringwood Community Garden and has had her own plot for two years, growing produce including potatoes, cucumbers, tomatoes and flowers.
She visits weekly on her allotted watering day and enjoys swapping excess produce with her fellow gardeners and participating in a gardening program as part of her curriculum.
Bill Lynch, who lives in a unit, does not have room to grow vegetables, so he joined the club three years ago. A retired fireman, at 80 he is the oldest member and his produce tends to be whatever is in season. At the moment, that's tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers and beetroot. If he has a glut of anything, it gets left on a communal bench for people to help themselves.
Why does he prefer to grow his own? ''Because they're better for you.''
Vic Jeynes, 80, had an allotment in England before coming to Australia. Now a member of the local Probus gardening club, which has two plots at Ringwood, he and 12 others dug out the potatoes last week and this week will dig up half the plots to make way for winter greens.
Sharing the harvest is also part of Mr Jeynes' philosophy. ''We take some of the goodies and leave the rest for others,'' he said.
Member secretary Ralph Powell said: ''A virtual United Nations exists within the garden. On any given day it is possible to hear Italian, Greek, German and Chinese accents mixing with the Irish, British and Anglo-Australian members.''
The club has 102 plots that are leased for a one-off joining fee of $30 and an annual rent of $40.
A sensory garden for disability support groups runs along the front fence and there are three donated water tanks providing a supplementary water supply. An honour system prevails.
Ringwood Community Garden will open on the weekend of January 30-31 as part of the Australian Open Garden Scheme.
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