Hi Kalimna here.

I wanted to share with you that Darebin Council have created a seed saving guide!

You can download it from the link here .

You can share your home seed gathering skills by leaving any of your surplus in our little seed library in front of the community centre.

Thanks to whoever dropped off the sweet basil seeds this week … and it’s been lovely to see so many lemons being shared too!

If you came to our last morning tea Kalimna may have sent you home with a home cooked meal. We’ve been contemplating how we can reinvent community lunch 🥙 in corona times.

We had some potatoes kindly donated by Gordon Jones Potatoes 🥔 that came our way via Miranda at Melbourne Farmers Markets that we used to make potato and leek soup.

We’ve got lots of young families in our playgroups and older people who live alone, or care for others (and all those in between) who appreciate a meal cooked by someone else every now and then.

Following this, last week I had an inspiring conversation with Miranda and a bunch of lovely people from Cultivating Community - in relation to possibilities around ongoing community food provision.

Cultivating Community is an organisation that ‘runs food and gardening programs to lay the foundations for healthy communities’. They support public housing tenants across a number of sites to build and maintain community gardens, they provide education experiences through their school food garden program and run workshops on all sorts of garden related things.

And they are increasingly hanging out in the ‘hood with Carys on site four days a week at Alphington Community Farmgate building up the productivity 🥕🥦🥬🍅 of the gardens down there.

Our meeting was looking at how we can collaborate on a regular basis in our immediate neighbourhood to use and distribute some of the produce grown by them, or sourced by Miranda from the producers at the market.

It is really a privilege to work with such creative, go-getting, caring, community minded people!

I’ll update you on the progress as we develop the plan. Happy times.

Hooray! Adam was here all day installing our new cubby and sandpit … doesn’t it all look 👀 great. Thanks Castle and Cubby. We love it.

All the bits and pieces.

The walls going up.

The roof going on.

We just need to fill the sandpit up now … and plant out the garden beds.

And look, some new outdoor tables as well … pop past for a play!

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.