Joan Park Community Gardens

28/01/2026

Bob Kievit had a beautiful vision when he helped create the Joan Park Community Garden in 1998. Today, that vision continues to flourish. A lifelong member, Bob’s passion for community and connection was at the heart of everything he did.

We are deeply saddened by Bob’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and loved ones during this time. We remain committed to honouring his legacy and ensuring his vision lives on. Bob’s spirit will always be part of the Joan Park Community Gardens.

If you have a memory or story of Bob Kievets, we warmly invite you to share it with us.

10/12/2025

What a beautiful night at Alica Street Christmas fair hosted by Cr Brooke Patterson
We had a great time creating Christmas decorations and selling homemade crafts! Merry Christmas to all ♥️

06/12/2025

A magical night for our Joan Park Garden volunteers at Bunnings Christmas night in Southport. Thank you to Bunnings, our garden volunteers and the community for empowering us through 2025. Wishing you a joyous Christmas!

16/08/2025

Our wonderful members Lieke and Gerard fixing up our beautiful herb spiral.

14/08/2025

Our local artist Susie helping out to make our compost bins look fabulous!

09/08/2025

What a fun day at our Bunnings sausage sizzle yesterday!
Big thank you to all members who came to help and a bigger thank you to everyone in the community who bought snags to help support our garden🥰 We couldn't do it without you.

07/08/2025

Follow us for our new and exciting edition of Compost Corner and find out about HOT composting, the ins' and outs' and how to turn your gardens compost into gold for your garden.

Welcome to the first edition!

The garden has invested in terrific equipment to ramp up our composting activity and improve everyone's soil and growing experience. The key is to make enough for everyone to benefit and to do that we need to make it quickly. The equipment and processes that you will learn about and see refined over the coming months are how we can do this. I do hope you enjoy learning more and we will let you know how you can help.

Article 1 We bought a large 'compost tumbler' (currently housed at the back of the garden)
Why use a compost tumbler when you could just have a pile on the ground or in a compost bin? Some of the reasons for using a compost tumbler are to:
speed up decomposition
make it easy to turn
contain odours
reduce shoveling a compost pile from one spot to another
keep out rats, mice, or any other rodents
The reason we turn a pile is to mix the contents and add oxygen. Adding oxygen heats up the compost helping it break down faster. When hot composting (composting at higher temperatures for faster decomposition and more nutrient rich finished compost) we need to turn the contents every few days.

Adding a 'hot composting' method to our current 'cold composting' bays will significantly increase production to meet all our garden needs.

--
Regards
Paul Croft
Management Committee Member
Compost Project Lead
Joan Park Community Garden

07/08/2025

We have been quiet on social media but so much going on at the garden!
-New members
-New camp kitchen
-New composting project
-New Seed growing project
-New Organization memberships
-Upcoming Bunnings Southport Sausage Sizzle (Saturday, August 9th)
-Upcoming Bunnings Southport Fathers Day Stall (September 4th)

06/08/2025

Upcoming garden event!

Join us at Northey Street City Farm with MC Clarence Slockee, presenters Leonie Shanahan, Arno King, Gavin Hardy & Doreen Jachmann on Saturday 23 August 2025.