It’s always nice to end the term with a crowd, and it was lovely to have so many people along on Friday morning for Arty Gardening followed by Morning Tea. It was a gorgeous morning.

So many things were happening … we had Crystal drawing flowers, Sandra and Mark picking herbs to make little wardrobe bags to keep the bugs out of clothes and things smelling nice, Debra setting up seed trays (we’re getting some calendula and pak choy seeds sprouting hopefully) and Derek and David helping Clare in the shed to drill the holes in our soon to be finished worm towers.

And then we had more people turn up for morning tea - on the menu the most AMAZING chocolate biscuits made by Kinfolk.

In the garden this week Clare planted some more natives out on the front corner. And we dug some fertiliser in to the second productive garden bed in the front yard so it’s ready for a new crop to be planted when we are back.

Which will be on Tuesday 26 April.

So happy Easter, we hope the Easter bunny visits you … and we’ll see you on the other side of the school holidays! If you need to get in contact with us during this time please email info@alphington.org.au.

This Friday our lovely crafty friends Marie-Louise and Anne added some ADDITIONAL craft bling to our already craft-blinged tree in the community shed garden … now it looks extra fabulous.

Anne uses up all her wool scraps and turns them into pompoms - and we are very grateful to be the lucky recipients.

Thanks ladies! Your crafty goodness is good for us all!

Alphington Show was so much fun this year! We had glorious weather and lots of people came along and joined in. The pony rides were a real hit and our show entrants were super talented.

We’d like to thank our partners Alphington CWA. It was terrific to run this event together.

We’d also like to thank our friends from the Preston Garden Club for judging (along with the CWA) and Nelson Alexander for helping us publicise the event AND for providing a prize. We had 16 people get a hole in one on our mini-golf green and go into the draw to win the $100 LaTrobe Golf Club voucher… and many more spent quite a while trying!

This year we had 29 entrants in our family friendly, funny and somewhat shambolic dog show. The calibre of entrants was very impressive … we saw the most amazing trick - a dog who retrieved a tissue from a tissue box when their owner sneezed. Beyond impressive! We’d like to thank E and A Salce on High Street Thornbury for the prizes.

We had around 15 stallholders in our makers market with lots of lovely things to buy. We love running events that support local makers.

Finally a big thanks to our volunteers. We had some new helpers this year and along with some old favourites! And we really couldn’t do all the things we do without you.

Oh, and congratulations to all our prize winners … thanks once again everyone!

See you next year!

Last week we decorated seed packets together … marigolds … and filled up our seed library with the gorgeous packets.

This week we welcome Clare Mannion to run our Friday morning program. Some of you will probably know Clare - her children were at Alphington PS.

We’ll be looking forward to exploring some more Arty Gardening projects together in the coming months and tapping into both her gardening knowledge and arts background. Welcome Clare.

If you are interested in gardening, engaging in garden based arty activities outdoors with others or keen to have a neighbourhood chat you can join us in the garden from 10am on Fridays, followed by morning tea at 11.30am.

Don’t forget! … and the Dog Show 🐩 . Find out more here.