On afternoons, the sun shines over the top of the Church spire and creates a warm, timeless feeling as volunteers tend to their crops.

Derek Finter has been coming to the community garden for about three years.

"When I moved to Mudgee, it was my first opportunity to build a garden of my own, and I wanted to learn more to help me," he said.

"I enjoy the social aspect of it, and it's just a beautiful place, even if you don't do any work you can just sit and contemplate. But of course there is hard work to be done at times."

There is indeed a lot of ground to cover, the community garden was once home to multiple tennis courts.

Now there are all sorts of fruits and vegetables instead; cherries, citrus, quinces, apples, nectarines, peaches, plums, apricots and snow peas.

"When the fruit trees are producing, we get heaps, to the point where the branches nearly break," Mr Finter said.

The volunteers have focused on creating a sustainable and water-saving environment for their plants to grow.

They have built "wicking beds", which use containers with water reservoirs at the base to feed plants from below, to dramatically increase water efficiency.

The Community Garden recently received $12,000 dollars of State Government funding, which volunteers plan to use towards the construction of more wicking beds.

"We have an enormous water tank and that's what we use to water the plants with, so water restrictions made no difference to us. Once we get the wicking bed program underway we'll be able to use even less water," Mr Finter said.

Mr Finter has learnt a great deal about gardening since joining as a volunteer, and has built a steady social circle too.

"We've got a fairly reliable core of volunteers. We're running two sessions a week, on both Mondays and Saturdays, people can turn up and spend as much time as they want and take stuff home," he said.

"We have a few really experienced gardeners who are quite happy to pass their knowledge on, I've learnt a lot. I started from a very low base, but there are people here who know heaps."

Mudgee Uniting Community Garden can be found at the rear of the Mudgee Uniting Church, Mortimer St.

Anyone interested is encouraged to attend on Mondays 11:15am-1:30pm and Saturdays 9am-11am.

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