Back in the year 2000, a group of gardening enthusiasts decided to start a community garden to teach the community gardening skills.
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This year, the Wagga Demonstration Gardens celebrates its 20th birthday, with volunteers gathering at the gardens on Saturday to mark the occasion.
The garden, originally a council truck parking area, has come a long way since the group were first given permission to use it.
Volunteer Warren Warner has been helping at the gardens for nearly 17 years, and remembers when the now-fertile soil required a lot of work.
"We were digging the garden beds, and we were digging car parts out of it," he said.
"This was all clay and we've composted and everything and turned them into garden beds."
The gardens now boast a strong variety of fruit trees, vegetable gardens and flowers, along with a wood fired pizza oven and a children's section.
Gardening enthusiasts meet every Saturday to trade and buy whatever is in season, with volunteers also able to share in the produce grown at the gardens.
Janet White, who has volunteered at the gardens for about 15 years, said the venue offered not only a place to learn basic gardening skills, but also a place to relax.
"I continually get comments from people, especially people that are just starting to come, saying 'its so nice down here, it's so peaceful'," she said.
"You come in the gates, your blood pressure drops, your stress levels go down."
Garden coordinator Jim Rees said the garden had been a social hub through the years, including for newly-arrived multicultural communities including the first wave of African migrants and more recently, the Yazidi community.
He said anyone who wanted to learn about gardening could visit on Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday mornings where they would be given a short induction.
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"Then they can just come and join in and they get to take home a bit of produce," he said.
Ms White said the gardens was also a place for people to learn new skills outside gardening such as welding or concreting to maintain the garden beds and shade structures.
"People come here and learn new skills and sometimes they get a job because they've learnt those skills," she said.
She said much of the appeal of the gardens was also having a place to come and have a cup of tea and meet other community members.
"It's a social thing, it's fun, everybody's nice, you get to eat nice stuff and you meet new people, there's always a trickle of new people coming in," she said.
