Hi all, we’ll be reopening today (Wednesday) and we’ll be working hard to get back on track.

Kalimna and I will be finalising the enrolments in our short courses (which were due to start this week - but will now start next week). If you are enrolled you will hear from us in the next few days to confirm all the details.

Note we DO still have some spots available if you are keen to join in a friendly, fun and creative community activity … like woodworking, collage or eco-dyeing. Make hay while the sun ☀️ shines! You can find out more and enrol here.

We look forward to being back on site and seeing you soon.

And I am looking forward to seeing what two weeks of rain and sunshine has meant for the garden … I’m guessing that our new raised beds will be bursting with edible goodness!

We’re back on Monday 12 July raring to go for Term 3 after 2 weeks of school holidays.

And we’re looking forward to rolling out some new programs including:

• Arty Gardening - Friday mornings $5 for crafty fun in the garden and shed. Katrina will be here to set up a series of weekly activities. suitable for young families and people of all ages and abilities.

• CLAG (collage) - Join Kristian for a 6 week collage workshop in the evenings. Cut, paste and create. Work on individual or shared projects. Explore collage artists and all the possibilities. Suitable for beginners to more experienced artists.

• Woodworking Projects - Dave’s back in the shed. Join him for a 4 week workshop where you’ll have the chance to get his help and advice as you work on a project of your choice.

Interested? You can check out our full program here. And book in here.

We’re delighted to welcome Katrina Forstner to the team to help us make the most of our outdoor spaces in terms 3 and 4.

She’ll be with us on Friday mornings assisting the community gardeners to develop a forward plan for our gardens and 🌱 explore propagating, planting and composting etc. in more detail.

And at 10.30am each week she’ll have arty gardening activities available in the community shed and/or garden suitable for young families and people of all ages and abilities to join in. Just $5 for some arty crafty fun … and then stay on for morning tea at 11.30am.

Interested? Here’s what’s coming up:

• 16 July - Collect/sort seeds and make and decorate seed packets to take home as a gift or for community distribution via our Seed Library

• 23 July - Smudge sticks with herbs and flowers from the garden

• 30 July - Chase the rainbows away and make a cute cloud wall hanging

• 6 August - Indoor plant propagation and upcycle a can with colour.

It should be a great morning of low key creative fun for grandparents and grandchildren, parents and kinder kids, creative adults and anyone who enjoys spending time doing creative garden based (slightly messy sometimes) activities (with the reward of morning tea afterwards).

Just pop past any Friday morning during school term to check it out and join in. We’ll look forward to seeing you soon.

The latest Grow Local Cook Local workshop was called ‘Chive Talking’ and was all about using winter herbs that are easy to grow at home … and cooking dumplings.

Shu Yun came along to teach us. She is a dumpling expert. In fact she told us that for a couple of years she worked in a dumpling factory in Melbourne where she made 2100 dumplings a day - amazing!

Anyway, here’s a little video we made about what we did in the workshop and what we learnt. If you want to make dumplings yourself you can follow along.

Ingredients

• gyoza wraps

• minced pork

• ginger (pickled or fresh)

• spring onions

• baby spinach leaves

• cabbage

• Chinese rice wine

• sesame oil

• salt and pepper

• sugar

• vegetable oil

Thanks Melbourne Farmers Market for organising this workshop - it was terrific. Thanks City of Yarra for funding this fabulous series.

Book in to upcoming workshops, find recipes and see more photos here.

Our first Grow Local Cook Local workshop was lots of fun this week! Benedict from The Practical Beekeeper took us through how honey is made and all the intricacies of a bee hive. Then we headed into the kitchen to cook with honey with Rachael from Melbourne Farmers Markets … and at the end sat down to share our cooking. We’ve got more of these workshops coming up in the second week of the school holidays. Suitable for all ages. Book in here. Thanks Kalimna for taking these lovely pics!