Hi Leanne here.

I’ve been at my sister’s farm for Easter and I was quite excited at her tomato seed saving approach, so I thought I’d share some photos. They are pretty self explanatory …

Just choose some of the more overripe tomatoes you grew and squeeze the seeds out onto paper towel to dry them out.

Then when you are ready, you can plant the paper directly. Or chop the paper up and share your bounty. Great hey?

And also a picture of the farm at sunrise just a you can see how beautiful it is … standing at the back door looking east towards The Grampians.

If you’ve been wondering what exactly is going on down at the Alphington Community Farmgate site on the corner Wingrove Street and Parklands Avenue, and are keen for a sticky beak, Miranda who is the lovely and enthusiastic founder and director of Melbourne Farmers Markets is running a site tour on Sunday 25 April from 9.30-11am.

You’ll be able to meet a range of growers, producers and community organisations all playing a role in supporting urban agriculture and a local food system. Visit The Mushroomery, Farmwall, 3000 Acres etc.

Following the tour there’ll be ample time to do your weekly shopping and soak up the atmosphere of Alphington Farmers Market. Here you can meet local Victorian farmers and small-scale producers, discover what's in season, see how seasonality influences flavour (and price) and discover new recipe ideas directly from the farmer.

The link to book is: https://www.trybooking.com/BQNIV

We’ve had 18 people in our Women in the Shed program over 3 days in Term 1 and have been delighted to see proud faces and confidence beaming from the women as the finishing touches were applied to their projects. This term we saw some gorgeous mosaics produced along with wonderful woodwork projects including tool boxes, chopping boards and planter stands.

The Women in the Shed program has been a great success. It is fully booked again for Term 2, but we will open bookings for Term 3 and 4 in June. If you are keen to join in you can join our waiting list here.

Above is a picture of our Thursday group who paused in their final session to enjoy morning tea together.

And some snaps from the class and final shed projects below.

Hi friends, you can still book tickets to the CWA climate emergency talk coming up on Monday night at the Gleeson Centre in Darebin Parklands (just at the end of Separation Street).

After the extreme weather of the last week across Australia it’s a pretty good time to find out more about the implications of climate change if you’re not sure what it means and what we could do to make a difference.

For further info and to book in just click here. And remember, there’ll be yummy food provided - thanks CWA!

We have had a recent blitz of glass jar donations. And now we find we have too many … our Craftberry Jam community arts project has wound up and we have a big tub full to overflowing in our shed for preserving group etc.

So, we hope that if you are looking to donate your jars you might be kind enough to send them elsewhere for a little while … like Moon Rabbit Cafe in Preston which is part of Bridge Darebin (another Neighbourhood House in our network). They use jars as take away coffee cups as part of their ‘no waste’ commitment, and so they get through an awful lot!

Thanks. And we’ll let you know when our stockpile is depleted and we’re in need again!