Posts Tagged ‘urban agriculture’
The space is ripe-Building a Community Food System in Port Phillip
Posted in Events, Movements by paula on April 19th, 2010
- PPUFFN supporters at the Port Phillip EcoCentre
Port Phillip Urban Fresh Food Network (PPUFFN) is hosting its first public forum for 2010: “The Space is Ripe-Building a Community Food System in Port Phillip”, to be held at the Port Phillip EcoCentre on Tuesday 27 April from 5.30-7.30pm.
The event will incorporate a twilight session of guest speakers, food/garden share and swap opportunities, as well as an inviting supper which is free of charge for all participants.
Join other local residents, community groups and businesses to hear how our guest speakers from City of Port Phillip and Friends of the Earth (FOE) are working to make Port Phillip more edible.
Find out about Council’s latest ideas for developing community gardens and help shape policy by contributing your own. Discover more about the enterprising and food-focused community hub which FOE is creating in South Melbourne and how you can get involved.
After the forum, from 7pm, enjoy an earthly supper prepared in the Eco Centre’s kitchen from both garden fresh and locally donated produce – sustainable eating at its best!
All participants will be invited to delve into the PPUFFN food/garden share and swap table where you’re guaranteed to find a few surprises. Please bring along any surplus produce, seeds, preserves, recipes, etc to share, if you can. And if you can’t, come along anyway!
RSVPs and enquiries to:gardeners@ecocentre.com. Ph: 9525 3102. RSVPs essential for catering purposes.
Food Swapping for Sustainability: Overview
Posted in Models, Research by Kate Archdeacon on April 8th, 2010
Image: woodleywonderworks via flickr CC
From “I’ll Raise You Six Granny Smiths” by Sue Jackson on newMatilda:
You have a glut of lemons and your family and friends are pleading “No more!”. Wild parsley is pushing up your pavers. Your signature banana cake recipe deserves wider public recognition. You have heaps of seed saved from last year’s best chillies. If you have found yourself in any of these situations, perhaps what you need is a neighbourhood food swap.
Of course, food swapping is hardly a new phenomenon. Home gardeners have always exchanged produce or given it away. It is not unusual for community or church events to include swapping of food along with other items like toys or books and community gardeners regularly share produce.
What is new is the emergence of events designed specifically for food exchange, where no money changes hands, which are organised by people with food security, public health and community building in mind. And although such events are certainly not exclusive to Australia, we are certainly in the vanguard of this exciting new movement.
As the phenomenon is in its infancy it is not easy to obtain comprehensive figures about the level of activity. There are no official, dedicated national or international food swappers newsletters — as yet — and no central bodies registering food swaps or collecting statistics but we can glean some information.
Feral Fruit Trees: Melbourne
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on March 23rd, 2010
Feral fruit trees are fruit trees growing in or overhanging public spaces that are accessible to the urban hunter-gatherer. The Feral Fruit Trees Melbourne website seeks to promote localized [sic] food gathering in cities where food is being obtained from increasingly distant sources. The current system of food delivery into urban centers poses unnecessary strain upon both the economy and the environment due to transportation costs. Feral fruit tree harvesting transforms our current food distribution system into a more sustainable alternative and promotes a consciousness of the ecology within our urban environments. Urban hunter-gatherers can also enjoy the benefit of fresh fruit that is often organic and not to mention free.
Fruit lying outside the boundary of private property for instance on a branch hanging over a fence is considered to be public property and therefore anyone can legally take the fruit. Please don’t take any fruit that is over someone’s fence even if it is in close reach as this is technically stealing. It always pays to just ask the owner, usually they won’t mind no one is really going to eat a whole tree of figs or loquats. Some people may be sensitive about having the fruit from their tree taken even if it is hanging into public space; therefore even though you are within your rights to take the fruit, common courtesy should be employed. eg. Please don’t make some old Greek guy angry by taking fruit when he doesn’t want you to.
Furthermore a few easy guidelines should be followed in order to ensure the sustainability and fair distribution of this precious public resource.
1. Do not be greedy. Take only as much fruit as you need as there may be other fruit pickers in the area who wish to eat the fruit as well.
2. Try not to damage the tree or the area around the tree. It would be wise to use a proper cutting tool to ensure clean cuts that do less damage to the tree. Try not to rip any leaves, branches or trample any plants below. I was told one story about a Mulberry tree that everyone used to plunder, the owner got so sick of people trampling his other plants from eating the berries that he unfortunately ended up cutting down the tree.
The World’s Biggest Eva Vegie Swap
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on March 10th, 2010
Image: woodleywonderworks via flickr CC
Got too many lemons? Over-run with parsley but no sweet basil in sight? If only you could swap all those olives for tomatoes! Well now you can!
As part of this year’s Melbourne Food and Wine Festival, CERES Urban Orchard, Yarra Neighbourhood Orchard and Cultivating Community are hosting what we’ve called “The World’s Biggest Eva Vegie Swap” with the hope that veggie gardeners from across this wide, brown city will bring along an abundance of gorgeous backyard produce and show Melbourne town what veggie swapping is all about!
This phenomenon has been sweeping Victoria, Australia and the world as folks realise the galaxy of potential that’s in our backyards and how easy and fun it is to get together and swap food – So bring along your vegies, herbs, seeds, seedlings, cuttings, preserves, recipes etc and see how it’s done – you might even get one going in your community!
When and where? Saturday 13th March
City Square, corner Collins & Swanston Street 10am – 2pm
Out of the Scientist’s Garden: Australian Urban Agriculture
Posted in Research by Kate Archdeacon on February 22nd, 2010
Source: Cleanfood, the Future Climate newsletter
Out of the Scientist’s Garden — a story of water and food by Richard Stirzaker
From the Book Review by Andrew Campbell
There are few more fundamental issues facing humanity than how best to feed ourselves in an increasingly crowded world, and — in Australia especially — what that means for scarce water resources. Richard Stirzaker has written a fascinating exploration of the realities of turning water, sunlight and nutrients into food. Out of the Scientist’s Garden — a story of water and food is published by CSIRO Publishing.
This elegant, lucid book starts in the Stirzaker family garden on a 877m2 block in suburban O’Connor, ACT. It works from that very local scale through large-scale industrial agriculture to national and global food security issues and back again, always grounded in a profound understanding of the challenges facing food producers at all levels. In our quest for more sustainable options, the Stirzaker garden should stimulate the Australian consciousness as Walden Pond did for Americans — an evocative lens through which to examine and better understand big issues of our time.
In his day job, Dr Richard Stirzaker is a Principal Research Scientist with the CSIRO. He has an outstanding track record in science and innovation as the inventor of a uniquely simple irrigation wetting front detector and CSIRO’s ‘Clever Clover’ kit for vegetable gardens. First and foremost, Richard Stirzaker is a gardener with a lifelong passion for growing food. This book unites the scientist and the gardener beautifully, blending the rigour of the scientific method with the sensuality of planting in rich soil and tasting perfectly ripe fruit and fresh vegetables. When Stirzaker suggests that the best way to experience an apricot at its most perfect is to lie under the tree with your mouth open, it is easy to imagine him doing just that.
Guerilla Gardens & forward-thinking councils
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on December 7th, 2009
Source: Friends of the Earth Melbourne
From “Guerilla Gardeners Get a Green Light“, by Sue Jackson
At its regular monthly meeting in August, Melbourne’s Yarra Council won itself a green star for forward thinking. Instead of razing local unauthorised street gardens as it had threatened to shortly before the meeting, it did a complete about-face, voting unanimously to become a champion of such initiatives instead. Yarra, like quite a few other municipalities, is increasingly becoming dotted with community-initiated gardens. These include registered, secure community gardens that councils approve and support, but there are also others — guerilla gardens located in places like planter boxes in the street or on abandoned public land, which are established without prior council approval. As their survival relies on councils turning a blind eye, the future of each individual garden of this type is always precarious.
Guerilla gardeners live with this knowledge, but tend to push it to the back of their minds. At least that had been the case for me and my fellow renegades at Windmill Foodgarden @ Tramstop 22 in the inner-city Melbourne suburb of Clifton Hill — right up until the axe fell in early August. The story of what happened next — the spontaneous campaign which overturned a silly decision so successfully that enemies of guerrilla gardens are now its friends — might be useful to anyone else out there trying to bring change on this issue at a local level.
Kitchen Garden Workshop: Kinglake Temporary Village
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on October 26th, 2009
Source: Climate Action Calendar
Image: K. Archdeacon CC_attribution_share-alike
Get your garden plants sowing, for when the house and garden get going! Come and learn about growing in limited spaces such as planter boxes, tubs and wine barrels. You can have a garden, even in the midst of a construction site!
There will be a range of information and different varieties of herb and vegetable seed packets and seedling giveaways. Local gardeners will present on gardening tips to start your spring food garden incl. hands on demo. Come & share your experiences too!
When: Fri 30 Oct 6.00 – 8.00pm
Where: Kinglake Temporary Village Communal Kitchen
Who: For residents of the temporary village and others in the Kinglake community. This is a family friendly event – kids most welcome!
Cost: FREE Dinner will be provided
RSVP: timnanna@iprimus.com.au by Wed 28 Oct
Proudly supported by Permaculture Kinglake Ranges and the Victorian Bushfire Reconstruction and Recovery Authority (VBRRA)
Sprout Community Market: November & December
Posted in Movements by Zanni on October 21st, 2009
Sprout holds a diverse and vibrant local Community Market on the first Thursday of each month (except winter & Jan) at Sprout Community Gardens – corner of Clapham and Watt Sts, Thornbury (Mel ref 30 F4) from 3pm-7pm.
Sprout Market has a variety of stalls (organically grown produce, dried herbs and plants; food & drink; kids activities/ workshops; local crafts, arts and designs), music and sells produce that has been produced on site as well as offering stalls to vendors from the wider community, encouraging local community strength, connection and community enterprise with a focus on sustainability.
Sprout Open Gate – Each Thursday from 1-4pm (or 3-7pm on the first Thursday of the month) Sprout Opens the Gate for people to buy organically grown seedlings, dried and fresh herbs, plants, fresh produce from the site and other items produced on site or just to have a look around.
If you are interested in having a stall, volunteering or looking to sell local surplus produce, or just want general information about Open Gate or the Market, please contact us on 9484-5565 or email zwaldstein@mindaustralia.org.au
Dates for the rest of 2009 are: Nov 5th and Dec 3rd.
The Backyard EcoSystem
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on August 6th, 2009
Source: Climate Action Calendar
Image: nellee100 via flickr
Very Edible Gardens presents:
The Backyard Ecosystem: Organic Pest Control And Adventures In The Microcosmos
There are an estimated 10 quadrillion microorganisms living in a suburban organic backyard. Be introduced to common insects in your backyard and learn to identify them. What strange creatures live in the soil and why are they important? Who are the good guys? Who are the bad guys? How do we facilitate the good guys for natural pest control? Behold the beauty of the ladybird, and opalescent butterfly pupae. Be awed by the tiny lerp building a beautiful sugar temple. See the ferocious lacewing larvae in an aphid feeding frenzy. And learn about the fantastical life of the soil.
Tuesday, 15 September 2009, 6:30pm - 8:30pm
Come at 6:15 for a cuppa
Yarraville Community Centre, 114 Blackwood Street, Yarraville
Sprout Community Garden: Open Gate
Posted in Movements by Zanni on July 20th, 2009
Sprout Community Garden – Open Gate each Thursday 1-4pm
Sprout Community Garden is a recovery focused program of Mind for people recovering from mental illness, drug and alcohol issues or at risk of homelessness that promotes well-being and community strengthening.
Each Thursday from 1-4pm Sprout has an Open Gate for people to come and have a look around and buy organically grown seedlings, produce and other items produced on site.