We blogged about the glorious Dowling Street Container Garden in July, but what a difference a month makes.

In late July, Housing NSW, which owns the site, gave Greening Woolloomooloo five days to clear out their gardens. The gardeners have had a slight reprieve though, housing minister David Borger said he’s talking to Sydney council to find another site for the garden.

There’s a small crowd milling around on the block opposite the Old Fitzroy pub in Woolloomooloo. But although it’s one of the few unrenovated, unreconstructed parts of East Sydney, this is strictly wholesome.

Wholesome in the true sense of the word: bound by Dowling Street, Reid Avenue and McElhone Street, it’s a community garden, and it’s been interesting to watch it develop over the last couple of years.

The garden is run by local neighbours and friends through the voluntary Greening Woolloomooloo. They’re good at applying for grants, and since first pitching the project in late 2004, have developed the garden into a moderately stable thing.

You can imagine a face off between the gardeners and the usual denizens of a spot like this, tucked between inner city apartments, highway overpasses, and dark lanes. But graffiti is a big part of this garden.

The garden is divided into roughly four quadrants: upper and lower food production terraces, an art area and nursery, and a lower decorative terrace. It uses water harvesting at various points, and a water storage tank.

It’s a garden that makes me want to walk through the area just to see how it’s growing.

Community gardens were almost fatally linked to mung beans, beards and ’60s folky idealism.

But with the last two hip again, plus the food supply and public health impacts of a changing climate – and (maybe) deteriorating urban neighbourhoods – shared gardens are back on the radar.

There is at least one in Woolloomoolloo, on the corner of Sydney Place and Dowling Street, where Mission Australia gets people suffering from mental illness to plant and tend vegetables, herbs and flowers.

Gardening has helped improve clients’ social skills and boosted their social interactions. It’s gone a long way to elevating their confidence too. Seeing the plants grow, and picking their own vegetables has given them a sense of achievement.

That garden was vandalised soon after.

Garden numbers are growing (see the council’s map).

This phenomenon on Myrtle Street, Chippendale is one of my favourites (see also Life in Chippendale and Elizabeth Farrelly).

Outside Mobbs’s house in Chippendale a little garden grows. Beside it a sign reads: “Mandarins, oranges, limes, chillies, mint, native mint, coriander, rocket, strawberries, raspberries, kaffir lime leaves, cumquats, parsley, passionfruit, bay leaves, lemon myrtle and more … Pick any fruit, berry or leaf that you want to eat. These plants provided by local residents for anyone – we need to grow food where we live and work.

I was about to say, “how do I get involved?” But I guess that last quote says, “make it happen.”