Posts tagged ‘food’
Whats on in July?
Our trusty Foodswaps.
There are all sorts of goodies ready to swap from back yards across Darebin – seedlings, greens, citrus, rhubarb, something you have made in your kitchen if your garden doesn’t have anything to swap.
So come along to one of our food swaps and exchange something that you have in abundance for something someone else has been growing in their garden, super fresh produce at its best!
Reservoir Food Swap – 10am on 16th July outside Reservoir Library.
Fairfield Food Swap at 11am on 16th July at the cnr of Duncan and Gillies st.
Thornbury/Preston Food swap at 11am on 23rd of July at Thornbury Picture House
July Repair cafe – Our 26th repair cafe
Our 26th Darebin Repair cafe takes place on 24th July 10am-1pm. Clyde Hall, Thornbury
Spots to be booked for sewing and jewellery repair and some general fixes. – get in quick -bookings can be made here – Darebin Repair Cafe #26
Join us to be a hard rubbish hero!
Transition Darebin are co-hosting with Darebin Hard Rubbish Heroes (DHRH) as part of the Span Community House RRR Hub project with a pop-up shop that will offer free and low-price items, and include upcycling, recycling collection and workshops.
This is all aimed at helping us avoid items ending up in landfill as ‘hard rubbish season’ continues during July in Darebin!
More info here – https://www.darebinhardrubbishheroes.org/events/relove-pop-up
A whole lot going on – we would love to hear from you if you have time on your hands to help out.
Email us at Transitiondarebin@gmail.com
Whats on in July
Even though its winter, the second half of July is heating up with lots of events coming up
First up, our trusty Foodswaps
Reservoir Food Swap – 10am on 17th July outside Reservoir Library. (cancelled due to COVID 19 lockdown)
Fairfield Food Swap at 11am on 17th July at the cnr of Duncan and Gillies st. (cancelled due to COVID 19 lockdown)
Thornbury/Preston Food swap at 11am on 24th of July at Thornbury Picture House (cancelled due to COVID 19 lockdown)
Postponed due to COVID 19 lockdown – stay tuned for new dates
We are co-hosting the ReLove Upcycle Market with the Darebin Hard Rubbish Heroes taking place at The Bridge Darebin 218 High st, Preston.
Lots going on in this event – Recycling drop offs, stallholders with upcycled crafts, raffles and a workshops to make bee baths from salvaged materials – more info here
Postponed due to COVID 19 lockdown – stay tuned for new dates
On the 20th July Transition Darebin are collaborating with Newlands Friends of the Forest to bring you Fascinating Forest Film Night from 6pm at Thornbury Picture House with snacks provided by TD.
July Repair cafe cancelled due to COVID 19 lockdown
Our 20th Darebin Repair cafe takes place on 25th July 10am-1pm
Some tickets remain for sewing and jewellery repair and some general fixes. – get in quick -bookings can be made here – Darebin Repair Cafe #20
Our last event of July on the afternoon of the 31st, Transition Darebin and Northcote Library Food Garden are hosting Handy Tips for Food Growing at Home providing ideas and information on food-growing at home, with presenters from NLFG and Heritage Fruits Society.
There will be 3 sessions, run in rotation, so you can attend one or all:
Compost-making – practical demonstration using the NLFG compost heaps
Wicking bed in a box – how to make a portable, compact garden bed
Fruit trees – what to grow; how to care for; basic pruning tips
A whole lot going on – get involved and we would love to hear from you if you find you have some time on your hands to help out with our activities. we would love to have you on board – email us at Transitiondarebin@gmail.com
Transition Darebin Urban Food Swap
This Saturday 13th June come to the food swap from 11 am to 12 noon at 251 High St Northcote (garden of Uniting Church). Meet like minded people and swap/share vegetables, fruit, flowers, seeds, seedlings, jams, chutney, sauces, handmade soaps etc.
If you have no garden produce to share, then you can bring something you baked to share. It’s about building community as much as sharing produce.
This food swap happens monthly on the second Saturday.
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!
Chutney Workshop #1
They came, they chopped, they chutneyed!
On Sunday 28th February a team of dedicated Transitioners converted a box of locally-grown tomatoes donated by Yellow Box Organics into bottles of tasty chutney to be served at the Darebin Kite Festival.
While we are not much closer to understanding the difference between a relish, a pickle and a chutney, we did learn to chutneyfy almost anything using our taste buds, a simple sweet-acid-salt-spice formula and a very easy bottling technique that can also be used for jams, fruit and other preserves.
Check out these pictures as the workshop unfolded…
Would you like to learn how to preserve, or perhaps have food skills to share? Contact Transition Darebin!
Transition Darebin 