Darebin calendar of events

On Tuesdays from 23rd April to 25th June (10 weeks), 10am-12.30pm.

Facilitator: Catherine Donnelley. Learn cooking skills in this hands on and demonstration class. Using fresh seasonal ingredients and garden produce, learn planning, preparation and presentation skills. This class is supported by program staff as well as an experienced cook.

Book by phone (9480 1364).

No garden of your own? Would you like be able to share some fresh produce? Go along and join Span’s gardening team. Wheelchair accessible, fun and supportive. You just need your skills, or want to develop skills.

‘Jen the chef’ makes meals which always includes a main and dessert. Why not go down and join in, eat something, and have a chat with some new friends.

A drop-in gardening session which everyone is welcome to attend.

Take something to share at their communal meal.

Go for a lunch and stay for the conversation and activities.

What you will learn:

• Taste your way through hop-driven beers from The 3 Ravens under the expert guidance of one of their brewery team.
• See behind the scenes of a fully functioning craft brewery.
• Learn The 3 Ravens approach to hop-driven beers.

What you will get:

• Brewery tour.
• Sharing style feast.
• A guided tasting of hoppy beers.

Members meet at the garden every Saturday.

Go along and help choose a new recipe for each class. Teach or be taught how to cook the food you’ve always wanted to know how to cook.

Call to confirm attendance (9462 4611).

On Tuesdays from 30th April to 18th June (8 weeks), 1.30-3.30pm.

Facilitator: Catherine Donnelley. Experience and enjoy demonstration and hands-on cooking, sharing recipes and using seasonal produce. This class is for participants living with or recovering from a mental health illness, have a mild disability or a long term condition. Family carers looking for a social connection are also encouraged to attend.

HACC-PYP and CHSP supported.

Book by phone (9480 1364).

No garden of your own? Would you like be able to share some fresh produce? Go along and join Span’s gardening team. Wheelchair accessible, fun and supportive. You just need your skills, or want to develop skills.

The food trucks offering vegan food who sometimes attend include: Bomba Wood Fired Pizza; Curry Up Now; Lady Rawsome; Paper Plains Food Truck; Pierogi Pierogi; Super Taco;Taitas Falafels; The Real Jerk Food Truck; Vegilicious; Von’s Vegan Bake House; Woking Amazing; and YAY foods. See their Facebook page for the specific list of trucks on a particular day.

A drop-in gardening session which everyone is welcome to attend.

Take something to share at their communal meal.

Go for a lunch and stay for the conversation and activities.

The DIVRS garden is a vegetable and fruit garden that specialises in growing fresh food for DIVRS’ emergency food relief efforts. Their volunteers will guide you through a hands on workshop on composting and worm farms, propagating seedlings, good soil management and planting techniques. You will also learn about the new DIVRS ‘Veg Squad’ program that supports local school kitchen gardens, community gardens and Darebin householders to grow food for both themselves and for Darebin residents experiencing food insecurity. All participants will take home a complimentary punnet of seedlings.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Members meet at the garden every Saturday.

In this workshop, ABC Organic Gardener writer Jessamy Miller will focus on keeping chooks in a suburban environment as well as introduce you to her own flock. You will learn how to build an ideal home for chooks to protect them from weather and potential predators and what to feed your chooks to keep them healthy and productive. Lastly, Jessamy will cover chicken first aid and how to ensure you meet local council requirements with your flock.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Miso is a traditional Japanese seasoning produced by fermenting soybeans with salt and koji (the fungus Aspergillus oryzae). You will make your own high protein and enzyme rich miso paste following traditional Japanese methods.

Book by email ([email protected]).

Backyard beekeeper Morgan Koegel will introduce you to her hive and teach you what you need to know to get started on a beekeeping journey. Morgan will talk about the time and cost commitment, the requirements of keeping bees in an urban environment, and what you can expect from your bees. You’ll have the opportunity to check out Morgan’s bee set-up and equipment, as well as taste some of her honey.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Join them for lunch and meet your neighbours. Everyone welcome. Talk about produce they grow and share food stories and recipes from around the world. Take home fresh herbs and garden lettuce. Kids can paint a pot and take home a plant.

Monique’s rental garden features fruit trees, veggie growing and chickens, all with a permaculture focus. The household puts an emphasis on eating and trading what they grow, as well as saving seeds for use the next season. With Monique’s experience as a market gardener, the space is productive and demonstrates that, even if you’re a renter, growing food is possible. In this tour, Monique will share her knowledge about taking crops from seed to table, crop rotation, how to apply market garden lessons to the backyard, and permaculture principles for the home and garden.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

No garden of your own? Would you like be able to share some fresh produce? Go along and join Span’s gardening team. Wheelchair accessible, fun and supportive. You just need your skills, or want to develop skills.

A two course home-cooked meal is shared in their dining room with other friendly community members. Go along for company, conversation and support. A great opportunity to find out what’s available in the neighbourhood. RSVP Span Community House by phone (9480 1364) or email.

A drop-in gardening session which everyone is welcome to attend.

Take something to share at their communal meal.

Go for a lunch and stay for the conversation and activities.

Damian has been practicing permaculture since he attended a talk by permaculture co-founder Bill Mollison in 1977. He is also involved in replanting native vegetation on Herring Island in inner suburban Melbourne. What permaculture and bush regeneration have in common is that they both aim to establish biodiversity whether building up microbes in the soil, integrating chooks and fruit trees or attracting wildlife to the garden. The complex mix of species forms mutually beneficial relationships, all performing multiple functions such as nutrient cycling, pollination or pest control. Damian’s garden reflects his love of growing food for both humans and local native species.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Nuka zuke is a famous Japanese fermented pickling technique using rice bran. In this workshop, you will make your own Nuka medium/bedding so that you can keep pickling at home for years and years!

Book by email ([email protected]).

Lee has created a bountiful garden in her social housing estate using mainly recycled materials, and generously shares her surplus harvest, saved seeds and garden knowledge with her neighbours, friends, and local community. She demonstrates how gardening can be affordable and accessible to everyone. Her garden features a wide range of fruit and vegetables, herbs and is also a haven for native bees and worms with a bee hotel and compost area.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

From the moment you arrive, your gregarious and hospitable hosts Luigi and Emanuela will entertain you with gardening and food preserving knowledge and stories as they showcase their abundant Mediterranean inspired garden. Features include intensively cultivated vegetable beds, a home built hothouse, food preserving area and backyard pizza oven.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Members meet at the garden every Saturday.

Poppy’s Patch started as a father/daughter project when Poppy was aged three and the family decided to use the space on the front lawn to start an edible garden – to not only grow food but teach her where food comes from. To save back-breaking work, they used the no-dig approach so that Poppy could directly layer it herself and learn about how soil is managed. This has helped transform rock-hard northern suburb clay soil into a rich organic loamy soil full of life and nutrients. More recent additions to the garden include multiple compost bins, worm farms and backyard chickens. To ensure Poppy can meaningfully participate in the garden, her father Chad has developed strategies for her to work independently. In this workshop, Chad will share these strategies with a focus on making productive gardening meaningful for kids, and the rest of the family.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

You will meet Kat Lavers’ covey of quails. You will learn all about quail care including housing, feeding and how they can work to support a garden system. Kat Lavers is a garden farmer, permaculture designer and facilitator whose 280 square metre block produces almost all the household’s herbs, veggies, fruit and eggs (428kg in 2018!) while using only 46 litres of mains water per person and 3.9 kilowatt hours of electricity per day.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Kat Lavers will explain natural pest management techniques relying on permaculture principles. You will have the opportunity to explore these techniques in practice in Kat’s permaculture garden which features fruit trees, intensive vegetable growing and quails. Kat Lavers is a garden farmer, permaculture designer and facilitator whose 280 square metre block produces almost all the household’s herbs, veggies, fruit and eggs (428kg in 2018!) while using only 46 litres of mains water per person and 3.9 kilowatt hours of electricity per day.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.

Kat Lavers’ urban permaculture system, The Plummery, is a 280 square metre block which produces almost all the household’s herbs, veggies, fruit and eggs (428kg in 2018) while using only 46 litres of mains water per person and 3.9 kilowatt hours of electricity per day. Kat is a garden farmer, permaculture designer and facilitator, and will discuss how she manages her system.

This event is part of the Darebin Backyard Harvest Festival.