Author Archive
Progressive House Tours
We are pleased to announce the start of a new venture – house/garden visits. Nothing new? Yes, these are small groups where the host discusses growing veggies, planning gardens and retro-fitting their house with you. Maximum group size is 10. On the day the group would visit 2 homes.
You must register by emailing John at cjpinn@bigpond.net.au (please put ‘Progressive House Tours’ in the subject). The cost is $5 per person, payable on the day. Once you register, we will email the address of the first house, and public transport details. In most cases the distance between the two houses will be walkable.
Our first tour.
House 1. Northcote. Water diversion, fruit & veggies. House insulated and double-glazed. Aquaculture begun.
House 2. Northcote. Energy-efficient retro-fit of an old house on a small block. Water harvesting, storage & internal use. Solar heating, house orientation, weather stripping. Basic veggie, fruit & berry growing.
Date: Saturday 23rd July.
Time: 2.pm. Finish approx 4.30.
Initial Location: Notified after registration. 100m 246/250/251 bus. 1.5k Fairfield station.
Mender Bender!
Because a stitch in time saves nine.
A night of sock-darnin’, hole-mendin’, and patch-sewin’.
Go hard and get all your sewing fix-it jobs done at once!
Bring a plate to share. BYO gear but some materials, sewing machines, cuppas and amateur sewing advice provided.
At 6-10pm
Wednesday 9th March 2011
Loophole Community Centre
670 High St Thornbury
The World’s Biggest Eva Vegie Swap
Been looking for a chance to offload those excess tomatoes and pick up some apples?
The Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in conjunction with CERES Urban Orchard, Yarra Neighbourhood Orchard and Cultivating Community are holding “The World’s Biggest Eva Vegie Swap”.
Annerliegh will be there trying to rally a li’l support for the northern produce share movement. If you’d like to come along and just hang with her….awesome.
You can bring pretty much anything including fruit, veg, preserves, bottled delicacies etc.
When and where? Saturday 12th March City Square, corner Collins & Swanston Streets (next to the Town Hall) 10am – 2pm
Be there or be pear.
A-picking we did go
Early yesterday morning, a group of 12 adults and 6 children set off for a berry picking adventure. We went up the windy road to the lower hills of the Strzelecki ranges and found that the Sunny Creek Organic berry farm was a little cooler than the highway we had transcended from.
The day started with a talk on the history and setting up of the permaculture designed property by one of the owners, Phil. We learnt of the importance of frogs and bees to the organic berry farmer, why currants will grow under chestnut trees but raspberries won’t, and how to tell a golden raspberry plant from a red raspberry, even before it fruits. Most importantly for our purposes on the day, we learnt how to judge a berry for immediate eating versus one for keeping a few days or freezing.
Then it was time to pick and be merry. Everyone had a bucket to fill, and there were oodles of beautiful plump berries to be had – silvan berries, boysenberries, youngberries, blackberries (all types of brambles), a rainbow of raspberries (yellow, red, purple and black) some red currants and a smattering of blueberries.
It was a perfect temperature for picking and we were in under the nets reaching for large clusters of berries, some so ripe that they fell off their stalk as soon as they were touched (then you had to ferret in the undergrowth to save them!). Of course a fair amount of berry grazing was done along the way, encouraged by the owner, who suggested we savour the sharper, more acidic, less ripe fruit and compare it with its more fully ripened and darker neighbour.
The owners gave us a lovely spot to have morning tea and our picnic lunch, and the children had a lovely time seeking adventures in the nearby bush and looking for tree frogs in the pond.
After weighing and packing our bounty, we wandered our separate ways home with our berry treasures, some stopping off in Yarragon on the way for a cuppa, and others checking out the new foal on a local farm, all determined to add one or two varieties of berry to our gardens next spring.
Perhaps the apple season will take us for another venture up into the hills– cox’s orange pippins and Canadian cider apples await. We will keep you posted re picking season for the apple crop and highly recommend the quality of the berries and berry picking experience at Sunny Creek.
Rachel and Jos
(on behalf of the fun_raising group)
Youngberry pickers
Boysenberries
Buckets of goodness
Missed out? Wished you could’ve come too? Join our mailing list and next time you’ll know about it!
TD’s first Made ‘n Thornbury market stall
Made ‘n Thornbury, an initiative of Thornbury Women’s Neighborhood House, held its final community market for 2010 on Saturday 11 December and Transition Darebin was among the stallholders, selling home-made produce, crafts and Christmas decorations and a selection of home-grown herbs, vegies, seeds and seedlings, all provided by Transition Darebinites.
It was a fun day, not least because we got to check out the other stalls. There are some seriously creative craftswomen in Darebin. We also discovered that fresh rhubarb is in high demand so it’s a good thing this reliable perennial is growing in many of our gardens.
The next Made ‘n Thornbury market will be in autumn. We hope to be there again. Thanks to the wonderful Maz, Rachel and Kelly for suggesting and organising our presence at this one.
Robynann and customers
Transition Darebin Urban Orchards 10/10/10 Planting Extravaganza
Once again a group of indefatigable Transitioners met at the old apple tree site next to the Epping train line in Northcote to continue its transformation from vacant land and dumping site to public garden and community meeting place, this time as part of the global 10/10/10 action movement.
Hard-working volunteers pruned, planted, mulched, sifted soil, weeded, watered and picnicked in the shade of the tree. Passersby were impressed by our industriousness and the metamorphosis taking place.
As usual, Cat set up her camera to document the day. Here’s the timelapse video:
Transition Darebin 