2018 'Thank You' Bee

Thank you to the broad beans that fed our bellies and enriched our soils with nitrogen.

Thank you trees that so generously shared their gifts.

Thank you friends from near and far who volunteered their time and intentions.

Thank you to the flowers and countless pollinators.

Thank you to the people who donated seedlings for prosperity and sovereignty.

Thank you to those who came and cheered us from the sidelines.

Thank you sharp minds, sharp tools.

Thank you for your energy and enthusiasm.

Thank you for sharing your cabbage stems.

Thank you to our bodies that laboured our love.

Thank you to our love that laboured our bodies.

Thank you Mother Earth for receiving, enabling and sharing. We honour your food and seasonality and literally owe our lives to your gifts. We love you.

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Happy solstice season one and all!

The community gardeners are once again going to participate in this year's Daylesford NYE parade. If you'd like to join us, please stay tuned for more deets.

Here's us at last year's event:

December Bee

A scorching (35 degrees) day saw numbers down this month, with only 30 hardy peeps braving the heat. Tricia had dropped off some lovely sunflower seedlings so we popped them in new beds with a skirt of summer variety spinach seeds that she had also dropped off – thanks Tricia! We kept the work load to a minimum and took things pretty easy, erecting a new chalkboard sign,

finding a little creature who loves our lack of chemicals,

catching up with friends,

making new ones,

harvesting some produce,

cooling down,

keeping to the shade,

making compost and

mulching.

Florian's seedlings were mostly too delicate to plant on Saturday in the heatwave so we had another planting bee today, which was infinitely cooler. Two boys, Zephyr and Jacob, planted several punnets at both Albert St and Rea Lands Park gardens. Tony ran over the grass paths with his mower – thanks Tony! 

Later Patrick met with Koos (local sustainability all-rounder) at the site of the fifth community food garden (more info soon) to try to work out the water problems there. Thanks Koos, it looks like quite an easy job to fix.

Thanks everyone for bearing the heat yesterday and for all the generosity given over the weekend. If you're interested in joining the water roster please email Pete.

March Working Bee

Thank you to all 50 people who turned up on Saturday for our monthly working bee and the Harvest Swapmeet. With so many enthusiastic people it's no wonder we got so much done.

We extended the chalk wall to include a space to list all the jobs that still need doing.

We continued pruning the apple trees alongside the library.

Then we mulched all the branches and covered them in lime to get rid of the apple scab.

We dug up a hefty crop of potatoes.

We dug in some donated mushroom compost. (Thanks Dougmore!)

We planted some seedlings.

We discussed the medicinal herb garden we are going to plant at Rea Lands Park. (If you'd like to be included in these discussions and plantings, please email us.)

We swapped goodies from our home gardens at the monthly Harvest Swapmeet.

And we marvelled at how lucky we are to live in a community with such abundance.

Our first nine months

The story of Daylesford Community Food Gardeners first nine months demonstrating how a guerilla action at one garden developed into three community gardens throughout the town.

New community garden brewing at DNC

Patrick was asked to draw up a design for a safety fence that is to be included in the community garden at Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre. DNC has been working away on establishing another community garden with an emphasis on sustainable food production. DNC run a certificate program in horticulture, and many other related courses and workshops from edible wild plants to cooking. Many of us can see all of Daylesford's community gardens being networked not only as a community food system, but doubling as educational resources.

Click for bigger

Draft design for Rea Lands Park

Click for bigger.

The Daylesford Community Food Gardeners (DCFG) met on the 27th May and agreed in-principle that the type of food system that would be most suitable for Rea Lands Park is a tree crop garden, or food forest.

It was also agreed that Patrick Jones prepare a draft design for the site, taking on the ideas from the first design session that was led by David Holmgren, in which over thirty participants were involved (see below topographical map with notes).

Working with sustainability officer, Jill Berry, it was then agreed that this draft design be prepared for the council meeting on June 21.

The proposed garden has several main points:

1. This is a long-term food garden for the purposes of community enrichment and food security.
2. The garden constitutes heavily mulched tree crop beds to suppress weeds and conserve water. Thus it is designed to be low maintenance.
3. A large open space remains for play and other community activities.
4. Mowing is reduced and it will be requested that herbicides and any other pesticides not be used in the garden. In-kind mowing is all that is asked of council, in terms of garden maintenance.
5. No existing flora or infrastructure is to be removed.
6. No earthworks or built infrastructure is required.
7. Donations will be sought for some trees and organic materials.
8. Grants will be sought for some trees and organic materials.
9. Access to the site for people with disabilities is possible by car from the access lane.
10. Monthly working bees at the site will continue indefinitely, as they currently are at the Albert St garden.
11. We do not seek money from council, however we ask that all community gardeners be covered by council’s public liability insurance.
12. The food grown at the garden is for the purposes of feeding local families. It is not to be capitalised upon, except for the purposes of fund raising for the garden’s development.

Today's story

Pic Adam Trafford

Today's front page story, from here.

Rea Lands Park protest
The Advocate
KIM QUINLAN
24 May, 2011 02:06 PM

DAYLESFORD residents held a protest on Thursday morning against the sale of one of the last public parks in Daylesford.

More than 40 people attended the peaceful protest at Rea Lands Park, which was gifted to the Daylesford community in the 1980s by long-term resident Betty Rea for specific use as a community park.

Patrick Jones, who organised Thursday's protest, said he believed Hepburn Shire Council was selling the park so the site could be used for a civic centre.

"Rea Lands Park should be left as a park out of respect for Betty. Legally, the council can probably sell in, but morally they shouldn't," Mr Jones said.

"This park is a great picnic place, the local kids play in it and mothers' groups use it as a meeting place."

Mr Jones hopes to hold talks with the Hepburn Shire Council about the possibility of re-establishing the community food garden from its temporary site near the Daylesford Library to Rea Lands Park.

Hepburn Shire Mayor Rod May said while the council was sympathetic to the community food gardeners' concerns about the park, he said their protest on Thursday was premature.

"The council has said it would look at disposing of poorly-utilised assets and the Rea Lands Park comes under that category. But at the council meeting on Tuesday, the council said it would leave the door open to consider the park for the community gardeners," Cr May said.

"There will be ongoing negotiations to see if the council finds the community garden compatible with its own direction for greater sustainability within the shire."

!!! Rea Lands Park to be sold?

After we started working with Hepburn council, building relationships with council officers and councillors, we found out that other members of council seemed to be acting against us. Annoyed by this we wrote to the CEO of Hepburn Shire Council, Kaylene Connrick, asking 4 very specific questions. We asked that these questions be raised at the next council meeting, however Kaylene Conrick refused to read them on the grounds that they were embarrassing and insulting to council officers, effectively silencing us. So here they are, now available to the public [pls nb I have omitted council officers names, except for the CEOs]:

RE: REA LANDS PARK COMMUNITY FOOD GARDEN, DAYLESFORD

dear kaylene,

i write so as the following questions be considered and respectfully answered by council tonight at the ordinary meeting in creswick.

1. a fortnight ago two council officers met to discuss with the daylesford community food gardeners (dcfg) potential sites for a permanent community food garden. a third officer did not show at that meeting and sent no apologies. the upshot of our meeting with the first two officers was that rea lands park was the most suitable site for this community endeavour. the third officer then submitted a recommendation completely antithetical to this position with no community consultation. as this officer is a community development officer, why then was she so actively working against community interests?

2. what has been your role, as CEO, in swaying this recommendation, working against community interests, and in taking one of the sustainability officers [who we were forming good communications with] 'off the case', just when this community group were starting to engage with council? it seems that this is a purposeful sabotaging of relations, and a negation of officers who are trying to forge good relations in the community. can you please tell us why this evidently deliberate sabotaging has occurred?

3. dcfg is a growing group of social gardeners wanting to create positive responses to climate change and energy descent with no money required from council and our insurance covered by share (sustainable hepburn...). a large scale civic centre with new council offices which requires enormous amounts of energetic and economic inputs is not essential to the well-being of the people of the shire, nor does it go any way to build resilience against ecological and energetic crises. we believe rea lands park is being sold to fund such an unimportant and costly exercise. are you recommending that rea lands park be sold to fund the new civic centre or some other council project? what is more important than food, energy and water security in our shire?

4. rea lands park was gifted to the community for community use. this park's heritage lies with the rea family, particularly betty rea, who was the community benefactor. does council not believe that morally it has an obligation to honour this generous legacy from a past elder of the town?

regards,
patrick,

on behalf of dcfg