A strong food growing culture

Garden Update – April 2023

It’s still early days, but already, a strong food growing culture is well and truly emerging at the Ecovillage. Gardens are popping up everywhere as new residents get their EUAs (Exclusive Use Areas) underway. It is a joy to behold the ever-changing vegie patches, in all their diversity, throughout the cluster community gardens. It’s also wonderful to see the enthusiasm with which everyone is helping each other out, passing on information and sharing bountiful harvests.

There is a wealth of experience and knowledge within the community, so some residents have formed a permaculture group, that organises show and tell meet ups at different locations around the village on a monthly basis. A wide range of relevant topics are covered and attendees get to hear about and see working examples in action.

I have also had the pleasure of working with a weekly Friday morning gardening group, where participants go to work on each other’s gardens and learn while doing. Over the last year, these folks have taken numerous gardens from ground zero (literally, hard bare ground) to beautiful, productive spaces. This group keeps on growing, the word is spreading, it’s a lot of fun and a backyard makeover force to be reckoned with.

Autumn is a particularly busy time of year for vegetable growing and a great time for starting up a new area of garden. In readiness for this important season, we will again be running our two garden workshops in April: “Growing Organic” and “Patch from Scratch”. The Ecovillage team offers these two popular kick-starter workshops for FREE to Ecovillage residents.

Much experience and research has been called upon and collated in the development of these highly informative workshops, along with facts and figures gathered from our demonstration garden site over the last couple of years. They are designed to give residents the grounding they need to get their gardens up and running.