SOLD: Beautiful Happyzine

Do you ever have the urge to peek over your garden wall and have a nosy at your neighbour’s garden? These days, besides maybe a polite wave on the rare occasions we reverse out of our drives at the same time, most of us never have any contact with those people that live so close to us. It’s a sad symptom of modern society that means our curious natures are often left woefully unsatisfied…

Enter MyGarden.co.nz, a new website dedicated to gardens of every kind around New Zealand, and the remedy for that curiosity! Based on the idea of community gardening “allotments” common in Europe, MyGarden allows people to create their own gardening space online, by posting photographs and descriptions of their gardens on an ongoing basis. And this means, we finally get to see over the wall without the risk of looking like a peeping tom!

The creator of MyGarden, Carlin Archer, hopes that MyGarden will facilitate dialogue, learning and community between people, their gardens, and their garden produce. The website allows people to create public or private groups which link people with common interests, or from common areas, and also has active forums for discussion on any kind of garden-related topics.

Carlin is most excited by the recently launched Garden Trader tool, which allows people to barter with each other for all sorts of garden stuff, from homegrown veggies to garden tools, at no cost to them. He hopes that this tool will help people form local food-sharing communities, providing a way to build community-resilience in increasingly uncertain economic times.

The website is also packed with heaps of interesting and useful articles and information, from a planting calendar, to fortnightly video’s helping you get the most from your garden. And who knows, MyGarden may even reconnect us with those strangers next door.

Carlin Archer

www.mygarden.co.nz

Tags: Gardening, Permaculture, Sustainability