Volunteer's Grant

Hooray for us! We have been successful in our application for a Volunteer's Grant from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs, and today we received the Letter of Offer, so very soon we should have the money in our account and begin spending!

Community vege swap meet...another one!

Community Event - Vegie Swap Meet
Too many tomatoes? Loads of lemons? Bundles of Beans? Don't let them go to waste. Bring along your excess home grown produce, anything from vegetables and fruit to worm juice, and swap it for someone else's excess produce.
The Vegie Swap will be held at Bulleen Art and Garden every second Saturday until ANZAC day, starting on the 17th of January. It will be held between 9am and 11am. Everyone's welcome, just turn up on the day.
Future Vegie Swap dates are 31st January, 14th & 28th February, 14th & 28th March and 11th and 25th of April. BAAG is only providing the space for this community event and will not be gaining financially in any way from it.

A Christmas Wish

Thank you Ruby from Northcote Community Gardeners.

Bees and Best Garden Winners

The award for the Super Best Garden of January 2009 (which I just invented 2 seconds ago) has to go to Justin and Edain whose plot is just bursting to overflowing with lush vege goodness...I mean, seriously, you need a pith helmet and a machete to get through that!

Jane's plot is also the envy of us all and runs a very close second, so green stars to you all!

We also had an impressive turn out at the working bee on Sunday considering the time of year and how hot it was. We managed to get some mulch spread about around the re-vegetation area, and weed under the fig trees, as well as sit down and have a natter, so it was a good day.

On the bee front, Ros has been doing some investigating and plans to send out an email about it, and has also suggested a link here to the Department of Sustainabilty where you can enter Apiary Code of Practice in their search box for those who are interested.

We may have bees in the gardens soon, but need to make sure it's all safe and proper first.

Next Working Bee is probably Sunday 1st February, so see you then for some planning and plotting for 2009.

Happy Christmas from Cultivating Community.

Merry Christmas from all the staff at Cultivating Community.

This year’s gift is from the Lennox St Community Garden in Richmond and features a selection of the gardener’s favourite recipes in English, Chinese and Vietnamese. It was produced as part of the ABC Open Garden Scheme and was accompanied by a DVD, Chapters of which can be viewed on by visiting our channel on You Tube http://au.youtube.com/user/CultivatingCommunity

If you are in Melbourne over the Festive period and have a tree that’s heaving with fruit please come along to Yarra Neighbourhood Orchard swap meet on Saturday the 3rd January from 10am to 1pm on the bike path opposite the Fitzroy pool. We are expecting a massive variety of produce and what could be better than swapping locally produced goodies!

Next year will see our weekly community fruit and vegetable market refocus on to local and seasonal produce. The markets take place every Thursday from the second week of January and have the cheapest produce this side of the Vic Market.

10:30-11:30 Harmsworth St Hall Collingwood

1:30-2:30 Base of 125 Napier St Fitzroy

Lastly our community garden in Napier St Fitzroy is taking part in the ABC Open Garden Scheme the weekend of 21/22 February. There will be tours, cooking demos, the launch of a DVD showing the history of the estate and interviews with gardeners and much much more. Opening times are 10am to 4pm – hope to see you there.

I wish you all a fantastic Christmas and I hope that all your harvests are bountiful in 2009!

Thanks
Ben Neil
Chief Executive Officer
Cultivating Community
P.O. Box 8 Abbotsford
Victoria 3067
Office: 03 9415 6580

Fax: 03 9415 6507
Mobile: 0404 255 317

www.cultivatingcommunity.org.au

Organic Gardener 2009

We have a new subscription for 2009. In the Library Container in the shed. Keep reading. Just write your name in the library book when you borrow one of the many goodies in there and then when you return it. It is a fabulous resource..Loads of ideas..

.

Visit from Barham Food Garden

Delicious oranges.

On Saturday we had a group from the Barham Community Food Garden visit our garden as part of a community garden tour that they did by bus. They were a great group of people who brought along a lovely selection of goodies for afternoon tea and a large box of locally grown oranges for us to share. The box is in the shed at the garden so help yourselves.

Barham is a town near the Vic/NSW border on the way to Swan Hill, they are only in the planning stages of their garden and were interested in how our garden worked. They also visited Veg Out, Atherton High Rise, and the Happy New Life garden in Richmond. They had seen the photos on our blog of that garden which inspired them to visit there. Hopefully we will keep in contact with them.

Mardie who organised the trip had also bought one of our t-shirts from Red Bubble. She is keen to have a chat with Rebecca and get her tips on setting up a blog.