Cool Autumn day in a convivial garden… The Sydney regional, quarterly gathering of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network in Rose Bay Community Garden

AROUND FOUR TIMES A YEAR, the Sydney crew and friends of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network get together in different community food gardens to share, advise, discover and socialise.

In early May 2015 the Network gathered at the new Rose Bay Community Garden in Sydney's harbourside Eastern Suburbs. The garden was opened only last year and has attracted an enthusiastic crew of gardeners both experienced and new.

The cold wind blowing off Sydney Harbour did little to dampen the conviviality of the community gardeners and their Network visitors.

Following is a photo essay of the gathering…

Emma Daniell, a local resident who designed the community garden and who has been training the gardeners gives the thirsty plants some water. Emma is a horticultural educator who works part-time for local government and who has a long involvement with the Randwick Community Organic Garden.

Brassicas make the most of the Autumn sun in Rose Bay Community Garden. Built on public open space and with the cooperation of Woollahra Council, one one side is a football field and on the other side a bushland planting.

No community garden is complete without a storage shed for tools and supplies.

The importance of food is not neglected at community garden gatherings…

As always at these events, food was contributed and we were treated to its diversity of tastes and edible textures as well as a tour of this orderly and new community garden — it was only opened in the latter part of last year. New it might be, the gardeners are looking forward to installing a flock of chooks and already offer workshops, education being a benefit of membership of many community gardens.

Josie knows where to find food.

Community garden mavens, Emma Daniell and Sarah Ladyman (right). While a student, Sarah was one of the crew who started the Sydney University community rooftop garden.

Eucalypts, vegetables, herbs, native plants, native bees and young fruit trees coexist in Rose Bay Community Garden

There's no argument about art having a place in community gardens when Josie and Etienne are at work.

A community garden without children is a rather quiet place…

What a way to build a relationship… planting potatoes in the community garden on a Sunday afternoon.

You don't have to know how to garden to become a community gardener — there's always someone there to help. Jon KIngston advises a new gardener at Rose Bay Community Garden. Jon is a horticulturalist based at James Street Reserve Community Garden in Redfern who advises community gardeners in the inner Sydney area.

Worms are a workforce of thousands that turn waste into fertiliser at community gardens.

Sarah Ladyman with one part of the extensive wormfarm that supplies fertiliser to Rose Bay Community Garden.

Seed saving is how we save seeds from this season's harvest for planting next season. Plants going to seed and new plants growing from those seeds are a living example of nature's cycles…

Jane Mowbray, president of the Australian City Farms & Community Gardens Network, is an avid seed saving and horticultural educator, and a member of Sydney's Inner West Seed Savers.

Seed saving and seed swapping is how community gardeners play an important role in preserving, through use, humanity's agricultural biodiversity…

Rose Bay is a long community garden on the edge of a sports field, demonstrating how different landuses can be stacked together.

As in all community gardens, flowers have an important role in attracting bees and pollinating plants as well as in insect pest control.

Delicate blue flowers attract small pollinators and delight people with their dots of vivid colour.

Rose Bay Community Garden is logically arranged both sides of a wide path.

Horticulturist Jon Kingston samples a tasty Rose Bay Community Garden tomato.

Sarah van Erp, who has been a local government waste reduction educator and who was one of the crew that started Waverley Park Communal Garden in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, takes time for Olive, her suitably-named child.

Community gardens are grow-places, meet-places and play spaces, all in one. For children, they stimulate imaginative play in turning them into adventure playgrounds.