Local food-related events

Purchase frozen local Blackberries and Blueberries …
for $13.50 a kilo grown in Kinglake. The berries are spray free and are fantastic preserved, as a topping for pancakes and ice cream, great for jam making, sauces, fruit pies, muffins etc. This is a fundraiser to help 2 brothers go to Malaysia for an Eltham High School Study Trip this September/ October. Send an email to their mum, Cathrine on c.king67@bigpond.com or text 0488384844. Include your order quantity, name and contact details please. Payment is cash on delivery.

Expressions of interest (EOIs) for the Home Harvest Working Group for Harvest Month and the Home Harvest Feast 2014.
Committee members will : contribute to the planning and delivery of Harvest Month and the Home Harvest Feast 2014; attend monthly meetings from July – March, meetings are held during business hours, normally Wednesday’s 2.30pm-4pm (first meeting set for 3 July at Edendale); assist with the set up and delivery on the weekend of the Home Harvest Feast; contribute to the development of a communications plan and the promotion of Harvest Month and the Home Harvest Feast; contribute to the monthly Grower’s newsletter; correspond with the committee members via email in-between meetings. Around 8 – 12 working group members are needed. If interested please submit your EOI to Kirsty Merritt at Kirsty.Merritt@nillumbik.vic.gov.au including your name, organisation representing (if relevant), contact email and phone number and the reason why you would like to be on the committee including any skills and experience you can contribute.

Book-a-chook

At the Diamond Valley Library last week, Fleur from Book-a-chook gave an informed and interesting talk on keeping chooks. If you are interested in renting or buying chickens, check out this website.

Other food activities/information

To celebrate International Compost week early in May, local online group Sustainable Table wrote a couple of informative articles on composting. See here.

Youth Food Movement

Pulling a homegrown carrot from a curbside veggie patch, exploring an off-the-grid eco-property, preserving kilos upon kilos of late-harvest tomatoes – the Youth Food Movement is all about getting punters’ hands dirty in a bid to create thought-provoking interactions with food. Read more here.

Local food-related events

Article in  Heidelberg Leader on trial verge gardening in Banyule. www.heraldsun.com.au/leader/north/banyule-council-to-trial-residents-cultivating-food-plants-along-nature-strips/story-fnglenug-1226631423266

11^th May, 2-3.30pm, Food forest tour of Ivanhoe Community Garden, gold coin donation. At the rear of 10 Tate Street, Ivanhoe.  Access is via driveway between 10 and 12. RSVP Sharon, Ivanhoe.foodgarden@gmail.com

Other food activities/information

An Autumn and Winter edible and medicinal wildfoods workshop will be running on the 9th of June in Thornbury. For more information contact Taj Scicluna thepermapixie@gmail.com, 0450375528.

Five varieties of Australian perry pear found to be at risk of loss to horticulture have been added to the Slow Food Foundation for Biodiversity’s international Ark of Taste. The perry varieties listed include the Yellow Huffcap, Moorcroft, Gin, Red Longdon and Green Horse. The Australian Ark of Taste was established in July 2003. It aims to protect and preserve quality, small-scale production of culturally significant foods that are threatened with extinction, including critically endangered breeds of animals and heirloom varieties of fruits and vegetables. Other Australian products in the Ark are Tasmanian Leatherwood honey, bull-boar sausages unique to Victoria, Kangaroo Island Ligurian bee honey from South Australia, Wessex Saddleback pig, Dairy Shorthorn and the Bunya, an indigenous nut native to Queensland.

European Union countries favour a ban on three pesticides linked to killing bees, which are vital to the continent’s agricultural industry. The insecticides – imidacloprid and clothianidin produced by German Bayer, and thiamethoxam, made by Switzerland’s Syngenta – are used to treat seeds, and are applied to soil or sprayed on bee-attractive plants and cereals. However, the insecticides have been blamed for a sharp decline in global bee populations.

Fair Trade Fortnight (4-19 May) is your chance to celebrate all things Fairtrade.