Farms for Firms - The QV1 Community Garden

At the west end of Hay Street, a new development takes root out the public eye. The QV1 Community Garden is a little slice of Heaven for anyone with a green thumb, and sits atop the QV1 car park. With a little help from City Farm, the garden hosts chooks, beehives and produce for tenants, alongside a slew of other benefits for the building at large.

Getting active

The QV1 garden is a community exercise; stretching all around the bounds of the car park's roof, tenants from the building can get their hands on a garden plot, and reap what they sow. Between these plots are communal sport courts, along with a gym.

"This is quite busy on a lunchtime. Tenants come up and play basketball or have fitness classes, and the garden just adds to it." - Ellen Drury, QV1 Receptionist

The garden itself also has barbeques tenants can reserve for events, and soon, the whole roof is scheduled to receive free Wi-Fi. The aim is to make the garden as accessible as possible, and provide not only a good area for exercise but an opportunity for budding hobbyists to meet.

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Bringing the office together

One of the key aspects of the community garden is just that: community.  The garden has some communal fruit trees any of the tenants can pluck from, and a fridge so people can share a cold beer whilst tending to their gardens.  Best of all people, with particular talents in farming get to become well-known names in the office.

"We actually have a beekeeper that works at Allens - one of the law firms - and she's told us the honey will be ready sometime this month."-Ellen

The garden has the potential to forge relationships between different tenants. With companies' names on their respective plots, gardening enthusiasts might learn a little about those they share the QV1 with. On top of this, people on the northside of the building can get a bird's-eye of the garden, quite literally seeing the fruits of their neighbours' labour.

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Green bin to greenery

A side benefit of the QV1 garden is it provides a sound waste management solution for the building as a whole. In short, green waste from the building and its kitchens go into compost and feed for the garden.

"Some green waste from the kitchen is given to the chickens, and in return we get to enjoy fresh eggs each day, as well as manure to place on the garden beds." - Paul Teraci, QV1 General Manager

Currently, there are plans to allow upcoming food retailers such as the Mary Street Bakery and the new bar Quo Vadis Baby to use the garden, should they wish to have some of their ingredients sourced on-site. With a myriad of potential newcomers to the upcoming QV1 plaza, there may well be a chance to have eggs or salads sourced from the garden.