By Tyler Wright
As the weather turns cooler in the transition from summer to sutumn, the Belgrave Food Garden will be holding a free family festival celebrating the change of season on Sunday 2 April.
Live music, gardening talks, a kids workshop and silent disco will be part of the festivities from 12pm to 4pm on the day, behind the Cameo Cinemas at 1624 Burwood Highway.
“As most gardeners will recognise, it hasn’t been a particularly great season because it’s been rather wet, but this year we’ve had a lot of beans, which have been great, a lot of herbs,” head of the Belgrave Food Garden committee Ellie McSheedy said.
“We’ve grown a lot of green tomatoes, we’ve got our fingers crossed some of those might ripen, and if they don’t, we’re going to be turning them into chutneys and preserves,” Ms McSheedy said.
Preparing the gardens for winter will involve composting old plants, thermo casting and using a fumigator plant to rid the area of existing diseases.
Vegetables including brassicas, carrots are then expected to slowly grow in the garden beds throughout winter.
“We’ve also a lot of leafy greens, so a lot of chards, and we had a lot of broccoli as well at the beginning of the season, and we’re also still growing some hops as well, which hopefully we’re going to be turning into a community beer later on in the year,” Mr McSheedy said.
“We’re going to be working with a wonderful permaculturalist Jane Coleman of Earth and Soul Designs, who is very kindly drawing up a crop rotation plan for us so we can absolutely maximise that tiny space to really get as much produce in there as we can and make it as healthy as it can be without the use of any pesticides or any chemicals.”
The space with nine garden beds about a metre and a half by one metre is available for the community to use 24 hours a day, with the beds looked after by volunteers and locals able to take home ready-to-pick produce.
“Outside of that, any other food that we have remaining is distributed among our volunteers that help out at the garden, and then when we do get a good harvest we also share produce with the library, who give it to the people who visit there, and also with DRERS (Dandenong Ranges Emergency Relief) who are also located in the same site as we are,” Ms McSheedy said.
“Bring community together to get to know more people, to be outdoors, to celebrate nature really is the main aim.
“By holding these events, we hope to get more people to know about the garden so they will come and visit the space, they will pick the produce.”
The Belgrave community garden family festival is supported by Yarra Ranges Council’s community grant program.
