Feb 282014
 

Local food-related events

home_harvestHarvest Month

It begins this Saturday, with Food Swaps at Diamond Creek, Heidelberg West, and Rivers of Yarrambat as well as a local Food Tasting held at the Bolton Street Deli, all starting at 10am. Check the Harvest month calendar for more details of displays, talks, tastings, a film night, a harvest skill share and of course the Home Harvest Feast for home growers and their family. St Andrews Market is on as usual Saturday morning, and the Hurstbridge swap and farmers’ market on Sunday.

Local producers represented at the Bolton Street Deli tastings will be: Hildebrand Grove – Arthurs Creek – olive oil; Kylie’s Bread – Christmas Hills – artisan organic bread; Shaws Road Winery – Arthurs Creek; Under The Pickle Tree – Panton Hill – relishes, sauces & pastes.

Diamond Creek Community Expo

Sunday March 2, 4:30 – 7pm. Come and taste our cool herbal teas, local tomato snacks and herb pikelets and take away some coffee grounds, comfrey leaves and lots of friendly information about connecting with local food! See you there.

Lemons

Briar Hill Primary school students are looking for donations of lemons to make their famous cordial for the Feast Day. If you are able to donate lemons, please email Kirsty.Merritt@nillumbik.vic.gov.au

Caring for fruit trees

Improve the yield from your fruit trees. The session will cover integrated pest management, soil improvement, watering and netting. Edendale, March 15, 2-4pm. Bookings 9433 3711. Cost $25.

Eltham Farmers’ Market

Opens on Sunday April 13, and will be open the second and fourth Sundays of each month.

Lettuces Any Day You Like

Other food activities/information

Succession in vegetable planting

If you are interested in a well described process of having lettuce’s all year, go to Linda Woodrow’s blog, the Witches Kitchen! However, Linda does live in the north coast of NSW!

Ceres 2014 Harvest Festival

Saturday 22nd March 10am -6pm.

It offers a range of entertainment with live music, performance, free workshops, animal displays and kids activities. All this alongside food and craft stalls from their most loved local merchants.

Pretty looking sugar-free drinks

from this site.

Feb 222014
 

I hope you have been able to take part in at least one Sustainable Living Festival activity over the past week. If not, there are still a few on this weekend. Have fun at the Sandor Katz fermentation workshops those who have booked in. (love to learn some of his techniques for preserving).
Can you hear the Earth sighing today? Such lovely rain we have had.

Local food-related events

Incredible Edible Yea

For those of you who follow IET in Yorkshire, you may be interested to know there is an Incredible Edible at Yea, just over the range. A little information can be found here.

Diamond Creek Expo, March 2

Local Food Connect will be represented at the expo and have been asked to run a food swap. If you live in Diamond Creek and are free, bring along some veggies or herbs to swap. There will also be information about Harvest Month activities and other local food initiatives.

Dry food co-op

A member is wanting to set up a dry food co-op in Eltham. If you are interested in joining such an activity, please reply to this email and I will pass on your details. See also the cooperatives workshop below.

Apple pies and more

Several tastings, talks, workshops and competitions have been organised for March. Details are in the Harvest Month calendar and will continue to be added. On March 29, in Eltham Town Square, there will be an apple pie competition, (as well as tastings of local produce, information about Eltham Farmers’ Market, and more!). There will be local celebrity judges and a wonderful prize for the winner! So, out with the recipe books and start practising! More information to come…

Seed saving film

Tuesday March 11, 6:30pm, Diamond Valley Library. View how people around the world are exercising their right to save seeds, share and grow food again. Have a discussion about creating a local seed bank at the library. Please rsvp to info@localfoodconnect.org.au (for supper requirements).

Local food tastings

Bolton Street deli will host a tasting on Saturday March 1, 10am-12pm. Check the calendar for more details.

Other food activities/information

Urban food production in Melbourne

A study has just been done showing that home food production is thriving. Even though we know it, it is good to have some evidence!

Local food garden educator

Seila Hierk has been teaching adults and children about food gardening for several years, in and around Melbourne. It is great to read about him in the Herald Sun this week.

Feb 132014
 

It is great to meet and talk with LFC readers for the first time…thanks to Bree, Cara and Chris at last week’s Greensborough Swap.

Local food-related events

The Great Big Swap Day

To celebrate the Sustainable Living Festival, Sustainable Macleod is organising a day of swapping and green auctioning activities on Saturday Feb 15. It is a great opportunity to meet like-minded people and share/swap some of your excess! More details in the calendar.

Seed-saving film night

Last week I missed adding the date of this event! It is in the Harvest Month calendar, but I should have written Tuesday March 11! If you plan to come along please let us know as we will have some supper to share.

Local open gardens this weekend

Refer to LFC News, January 23.

Sustainability at home

Gavin Webber has converted his small home block in Melton to a food farm! He makes his own cheese and has one or two blogs (e.g. greeningofgavin.com). He is giving a talk on “Sustainable Living in the Suburbs” at Ivanhoe Library Tuesday 18 Feb 7pm. Go along and see how much you can do on a small block with not much time (Gavin works four days a week).

Murundaka Open Day

Saturday 22 February, 10:00am – 4:00pm at Murundaka Cohousing Community, 42 Bamfield Road, Heidelberg Heights. Murundaka is an urban co-housing community with 20 households, a big communal garden, chooks, compost bays and more. Come along to the Open Day on February 22 and learn about ‘cohousing’, a unique form of development that seeks to recreate the advantages of the traditional village in a modern context. Social life centres around ‘common meals’, and this all-day tour features a vegetarian meal with fresh produce from the garden. Tickets are $50 ($40 concession) and you can book online at www.murundaka.eventbrite.com.au.

Creeds Farm, Epping North

You are invited to a free workshop on composting and worm farming at our community garden.Workshop presenter Wendy Mather will be there to demonstrate how to get the most out of composting and worm farms. The event is kindly sponsored by  Sustainability Outreach Whittlesea. The workshop is 9.30am – 11am, Sunday February 23. There will be then enough time for a regular working bee and food swap afterwards. As the summer vegetables are coming along, we can put the tomatoes and basil to good use and have pizzas for lunch afterwards. Please bring a pizza tray if you have one and any toppings / pizza bases you would like.

Member comment

An LFC member recently wrote: “I’d like more food discussions… including a place where we can discuss our local food projects … the myriad of them in development … from a preserving workshop, to cheese making, to sour dough etc, to watching a film and getting inspired, to reporting on the food forums we sometimes get to and the latest on the australian food sovereignty alliance etc”. What do you think?

New Eltham cafe/restaurant: The Common

The Common is a new cafe on the corner of Pryor Street and the Town Square. They are providing only organic food and wine and would like to source produce as locally as possible. Why not check it out?

Other food activities/information

Aquaponics job

CERES is looking for a super-motivated and entrepreneurial urban farmer. The project: you are given an established commercial aquaponics system. You, as an independent grower, run the farm helping CERES document its productive potential. They support you with training, mentorship and a guaranteed market for produce. This is an immediate start and would suit someone who lives near CERES. Phone: (03) 8673 6288.

Food 4 Thought – exploring meaningful livelihoods in urban agriculture

Australian City Farms & Community Garden Network’s 6th national community garden gathering – 21-23 March 2014, Tasmania.

Degraves Street recycling facility

The City of Melbourne is working with businesses in Degraves Street to implement a shared recycling program, which aims to divert plastics, paper, cardboard, aluminum, glass and organic waste from commercial bins.
The waste materials are collected from the businesses and processed on site at the Degraves Street Recycling Facility in Ross House, which hosts a food waste dehydrator, a cardboard baler and co-mingled recycling bins. Find out more in this video. Wouldn’t something similar be great to see in some of our suburban shopping areas?

Little Yarra Market

This Saturday is Little Yarra Market, an outdoor cafe style market with quality, craft and recycled stalls, organic produce, buskers, coffee, chai, pastries & cakes, wood fired pizza and biodynamic sausages. This and every 3rd Saturday of the month 9am-2pm, 205 Little Yarra Rd, Yarra Junction.

Feb 072014
 

Local food-related events

Seed saving

Many of you have this wonderful habit of saving seeds from your non-hybrid best veggie plants to prepare for next year’s plantings. Many of us don’t! As part of the March Harvest Month activities, we will be showing the documentary “Our seeds; seeds blong yumi”. Put together by Jude and Michel Fanton of the Seedsavers Network, it addresses the problems of globalised food based on hybrids that require pesticides and synthetic fertilisers. The film shows how individuals and small groups have solved these problems and introduces those who stand at the source of humanity’s diverse food heritage. It is a David and Goliath story where resilience and persuasive logic triumph over seemingly invincible forces that control much of our food. Venue Diamond Valley Library. Time: 6:30pm-8pm. Cost: Free, but please book with info@localfoodconnect.org.au or ring 0416 203067.
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