GreenClyde sustainable community urban horticulture toolkit

87% of Australians live in urban areas. Community-based horticulture will become increasingly integral to long-term food sustainability and community resilience.
The family-owned Clyde Hotel will be used by local community groups, students and researchers to build a green roof/vertical garden 'living laboratory' (GreenClyde) to demonstrate the viability of intensively-grown microgreens and green energy as a practical community model. Experts will lead knowledge exchanges on-site in the use of an urban horticulture toolkit. The project will be supported by urban horticulturalists at the University of Melbourne and other partnerships. The project is intergenerational in awareness-raising of sustainable communities.

The GreenClyde project addresses shared challenges in building sustainable food systems and demonstrating new ways of relating to an urban ‘food commons’. The ‘farm’ will be open to the community in designing, growing, and learning more about the benefits of microgreen farming, food waste re-use, green energy, and rainwater harvesting. Experts and volunteer farmers/growers will provide knowledge exchanges around an urban horticulture toolkit to enable communities to cultivate their own local food and green energy projects. Through examples of community-based urban horticulture, communities can build resilience and improve the liveability of their neighbourhoods.