Backyard Harvest Festival calendar
The annual Backyard Harvest Festival (previously called the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival) is taking place 18-26 November and will include gardens and workshops from Moreland as well as Darebin. All the garden tours and workshops in the calendar below cost $10 ($5 concession).
This is a hands-on cooking experience with an expert cooking instructor. Learn about Mexican cuisine, watch some cooking demonstrations, then enjoy eating the food with a complementary drink.
The menu: tacos de guisado (stewed beef); tortillas; salsa rojo + salsa verde (roasted tomato and tomatillo sauces); ceviche con tostadas (lightly cured seasonal fish); and sopa de tortilla (tortilla soup).
Enter via O’Grady Street.
The farmgate is open on Fridays 10am-2pm and Saturdays 9am-midday, opposite 12 Perkins Avenue, Bellfield.
As well as veggies, they stock bread, seasonal fruit and preserves.
Dogs not permitted.
Every Saturday except during January.
Join Market Lane Coffee and The Fermentary for a coffee tasting session. Cupping is a system of tasting and evaluating coffee that is used by roasters to decide which lots they are going to purchase. When coffees are experienced comparatively, their different flavour profiles emerge and you will begin to understand a coffee’s sweetness, acidity, or body.
You will learn how to prepare traditional dishes that you would expect to eat in the kitchen of a Greek family home. You will prepare all the meals together and then enjoy your feast.
Presenter: Kelly Michelakis.
All people of all ages are welcome, whether you’re a gardening wizard or don’t know a root from a branch.
Click here to read about the garden.
Learn the traditional craft of carving your own kitchen utensils using specialised carving knives and your hands. From a piece of sustainably sourced native timber, carve spoons, butter spreaders, spatulas or spurtles from a piece of wood. You will learn: an age-old craft; the sense of meditation and slowness to be found in whittling life’s essential objects; sourcing sustainable materials; the basics of traditional tool use; and how to safely turn a log into your favourite wooden utensil.
Presenter: Alma Arriaga.
Just outside the CERES grocery.
This walk will take place twice on the day, at 10.30am and at 1.30pm.
What if many of the weeds in our garden were just as edible as the vegetables we tend beside them? What if some of these free, all-too-easy-to-grow uninvited guests were so nutritionally dense that they are just about the healthiest things you could possibly eat? What if many of them also had medical traditions dating back centuries?
Well it’s all true! And if you know what to choose, they also taste great. Join Adam Grubb, co-author of The Weed Forager’s Handbook, for a walk foraging for edible weeds.
Go and and enjoy a meal with them. Welcoming the homeless, people with dependencies, struggling families, asylum seekers, refugees, people with disabilities and anyone who just wants a good meal and a chat.
Join Jess Cogger on a walk in the wild. Learn how to identify plants and forage edible weeds that surround us all.
Organised by Central Ringwood Community Centre.
Go and plant seeds and seedlings or just join them for a cuppa in a beautiful tranquil setting.
Click here to read about the garden.
Open Table “take surplus food that would otherwise be thrown away, and turn it into nutritious meals to share with the community, in order to reduce food insecurity and food waste”.
It appears that there are some months when the meal doesn’t happen so check their website calendar before going.
Regular working bee. Everyone welcome.
Click here to read about the garden.
This walk will take place twice on the day, at 10.30am and at 1.30pm.
What if many of the weeds in our garden were just as edible as the vegetables we tend beside them? What if some of these free, all-too-easy-to-grow uninvited guests were so nutritionally dense that they are just about the healthiest things you could possibly eat? What if many of them also had medical traditions dating back centuries?
Well it’s all true! And if you know what to choose, they also taste great. Join Adam Grubb, co-author of The Weed Forager’s Handbook, for a walk foraging for edible weeds.
This is a hands-on cooking experience with an expert cooking instructor. Learn about Chinese cuisine, watch some cooking demonstrations, then enjoy eating the food with a complementary drink.
The menu: sichaun wontons; chilli and sesame oil sauce; sichaun eggplant; tofu with chilli bean paste; braised pork belly; and chilli oil.
What you will learn: how to compost at home; simple to follow composting steps; and common problems and solutions.
This is a hands-on cooking experience with an expert cooking instructor. Learn about Japanese cuisine, watch some cooking demonstrations, then enjoy eating the food with a complementary drink.
The menu in odd numbered months: sushi rolls; miso soup; tempura (mixed fried vegetables, prawn and soba noodles); and seaweed salad).
The menu in even numbered months: fish with citrus soy sauce; ramen (noodles); seafood stock; fried chicken; and fried and marinated eggplant.
They do a lot of gathering and eating, and a bit of gardening! All welcome.
Click here to read about the garden.
Look for the large white ‘Local Food Connect’ marquee at the Farmers’ Market. Go along with your homegrown fruit and veggies, favourite seasonal recipes, spare jam jars, homemade labelled preserves, etc, and share and network with other local backyard growers.
Working bee, market stall and socialising.
You will learn the basics of making your own sauerkraut, fermented seasonal vegetables and kombucha plus how to use fermented products in day-to-day life. You will take home your own jars of vegetables to ferment at home plus a kombucha SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast).
Presenter: Lauren Mueller.
Italian food. See Rosa’s website for the menus.
There is always lots to do and any help is appreciated. Everyone welcome, even if you can’t stay long.
Click here to read about the garden.
Click here to read about the garden.
Be guided through various recipes that showcase the different ways that you can cook with bean curd at home. Then take home the dishes that you created (take your own container).
Organised by Strathdon House.
Click here to read about the garden.
A choice between roast meat or vegetarian. They like people to pre-order as it helps with numbers.
Click here to read about the garden.
Learn all about hot composts – what they are, how they work, what goes in them and how to look after them – all while you make a hot compost!
Organised by Friends of Regent Community Garden. Click here to read about the garden.
This is a hands-on cooking experience with an expert cooking instructor. Learn about Korean cuisine, watch some cooking demonstrations, then enjoy eating the food with a complementary drink.
The menu: kimchi, Korean style spicy chicken; haejanggguk (beef, cabbage and spice paste stew); and spicy dipping sauce.
Each Sunday night, a different local club, business, or church group provides and serves a meal to people in the Mitcham community.