Growing Community
Activating our Mission with a Landcare Nursery
Capacity building - LEP23_014_LLCSG
The issue
Significant nursery infrastructure was lying idle at The Living Classroom in Bingara after the previous operator had closed down. It included a well appointed polytunnel and numerous shadehouses, 3 of which had irrigation connected.
Bingara is nearly 70km from the nearest town with a nursery and Tamworth is the closest Landcare Nursery. Our IGA Hardware had a small selection of plants, but mostly non-native and definitely not locally grown. As an LLC with horticultural and previous commercial nursery experience this seemed like an opportunity too good to be true.
The solution
Northern Slopes Landcare applied for seed funding under the FRRR Helping Regional Communities Prepare for Drought Program to re-activate nursery operations. The expected grant outcomes included:
- the development of a community network to strengthen capacity
- providing training to improve skills and knowledge and
- improving social connection by activating unused infrastructure
The funding enabled us to establish The Living Classroom Community Nursery, and we have just had the 2nd anniversary of the initial information session.
NSLAs Mission is Healthy Landscapes, Healthy Food and Healthy People. To this end, the nursery focuses on growing natives (mostly endemic), vegetables, herbs and supporting pollinator attracting plants.
The impact
We have a strong core group of volunteers numbering 8, with an average of 4 at each weekly working bee. Due to space and logistical constraints, we have not been actively trying to increase these numbers. The social connections made in this work, along with getting locally grown plants out into the environment, are both important aspects of resilience.
We began engaging with the community through having a stall at the local monthly market and have allowed word of mouth to do much of our advertising for us which has given us time to evolve in pace with sales. We now go to a range of regional festivals, markets and events. Visitation and sales on Tuesday mornings have also increased as the word spreads and small contract jobs have this year seen sales surge.
The funding was acquitted in July 2025 and now all funds raised go back into operational costs. We are very lucky to have the support of Gwydir Shire Council which enables ongoing use of the infrastructure.