Local Food Connections

Amy Ciara was mainly a musician before the personal challenges of the Covid 19 lockdowns drove her to seek the solace of soil. This led to training in horticulture at the Melbourne Polytechnic, work in the horticulture industry and a desire to join the discussion about how to live sustainably on the Earth. Amy is a 3CR volunteer and joins us in this episode to discuss her interests in what the Celts knew about nature and how we live and care for plants now.

Kat Lavers is well-known for her highly productive Northcote food garden, The Plummery, where she produces hundreds of kilograms of fruit and vegetables a year on about 30m2 of land, showcasing what is possible in an urban backyard. Today we'll discuss what's involved in this and also whether growing food in this local way really is better for the climate. Kat is opening her garden as a feature event in the National Sustainability Festival which is running 1 - 29 February 2024https://sustainabilityfestival.au/ To visit The Plummery https://sustainabilityfestival.au/event/a-tour-of-the-plummery/ Check out the rest of the amazing line-up https://sustainabilityfestival.au/lineup/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song You Are What You Eat

Peter Symes was, for over 30 years, the Curator Horticulture at the Melbourne Royal Botanic Gardens, gaining expertise in plant diversity, lake and wetland ecology, design of plant environments and soil management. He is particularly interested in climate adaptation.Peter is passionate about the power of green spaces to improve human well-being and in this episode discusses his work in Gaza and Kenya with Global Gardens of Peace, an organisation whose mission it is to develop green landscapes for vulnerable people around the world.To find out more, go to www.globalgardensofpeace.orgLocal Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You Are What you Eat.

Louise Ward, owner and creator of the Edible Forest at the Yarra Valley Estate in Dixons Creek, and Jaimie Sweetman, head gardener, discuss their love of the 8 year old food forest they have nurtured together.  They explain what a food forest is and how it differs from conventional food growing. In the process they cover the topics of healthy soil, hugelkulture, and beneficial insects. You can find out more about the Edible Food Forest at Dixons Creek by going to www.edibleforest.co. And you can read Jaimie's excellent articles on growing unusual plants (from Angelica to Yerba Mate) at  https://localfoodconnect.org.au/eating/angelica/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song You Are What You Eat

Claire completed her Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) with David Arnold in Violet Town about 8 years ago and since then has maintained her 20 or so year old passion for the permaculture philosophy of sharing, keeping food production local and building community resilience. She has established a productive permaculture garden at Mooroolbark that showcases the permaculture approach to food growing, which is based on the integration of plant, animal and community resources. In this episode Claire and I discuss the final four Permaculture Principles: Use small and slow solutionsUse and value diversityUse the edges and value the marginalCreatively use and respond to change.To listen to our discussion of the other eight, go here: https://www.3cr.org.au/localfoodconnections/episode/what-permacultureand here:https://www.3cr.org.au/localfoodconnections/episode/permaculture-principles-obtain-yield-value-renewable-resources-design Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

I met Henri Muniz when I heard him speak inspiringly about permaculture, localisation of food production and community building at the Degrowth Festival held at CERES this past Spring. He is my first guest for 2024. Henri is from Down's Community Farm in Seaford, which is located on Old Wells Road, adjacent to the ecologically significant Seaford Wetlands. The project includes a communal garden, private veggie plots and regeneration projects, and also runs events around food growing and cooking. The property is the last public farm in Seaford and is licenced to run as a farm by the Frankston City Council. (Another example of a local government helping the movement towards sustainable living).Check out The Gardening Show on Radio Carrum with hosts Henri and Brendan. https://radiocarrum.org/shows/the-gardening-show/Go community radio!

In this episode, Claire and I continue our conversations about the 12 principles of permaculture design in the context of the three permaculture ethics EARTH CARE, PEOPLE CARE and FAIR SHARE. The 12 principles:Observe and interactCatch and store energyObtain a yieldApply self-regulation and accept feedbackUse and value renewable resources and servicesProduce no wasteDesign from patterns to detailsIntegrate rather than segregateUse small and slow solutionsUse and value diversityUse the edges and value the marginalCreatively use and respond to change. Paraphrased from David Holmgren who formulated these 12 principles: the Permaculture Principles are thinking tools that allow us to creatively re-design our environment and our behaviour in a world of declining energy and resources. Each principle can be thought of as a door that opens into a whole system of thinking, providing a different perspective that can be understood at varying levels of depth and application.  Because they're the basis of a whole system, they should all be used together, holistically, which means they form a circle of ideas rather than a list of rules.  Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song You Are What You Eat

In this episode, I chat with Chris Sprake. Chris is the manager of the community organization, The Wellington, based in Collingwood, directly opposite one of the largest public housing estates in the city. Since its inception in 2004, The Wellington has run as a charity supplying fresh produce to people in need as well as free medical clinics and community development programs.  Because of the high cost of living, there has been a dramatic increase in community need for food in particular, and the future of The Wellington in 2024 is precarious because of the lack of ongoing funding. If you would like to learn more go to the wellington.org.au This link is to a short video showing some of their service provision: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqFvLlMLG5s Their annual report can be found here: https://mega.nz/file/4mBSFCTS#rq1Z2clL59Ciim0X3K3aSCjG20_Xg24tMvFq2uEeqhk  Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

Guy Palmer returns to the Local Food Connections show to tell us what he knows about community gardens in the North East of Melbourne. We discuss the role of community gardens everywhere in helping people feel more connected to each other through sharing their love of growing healthy fruit and vegetables.Guy runs the informative and entertaining web-site Local Food Connect that you can visit for local knowledge about growing local food. https://localfoodconnect.org.au/There is information about the community gardens in Banyule, Booroondara, City of Yarra, Darebin, Manningham, Maroondah, Merri-bek, Nilumbik, Whittlesea and the Yarra Ranges.https://localfoodconnect.org.au/community-gardening/Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.

Somer Elan volunteers his time to save some of the food wasted by supermarkets in Melbourne and redistribute it at The Really Really Free Market to people who need it. The Really Really Free Market operates at the Catalyst Social Centre in Sydney Road Coburg every Wednesday (except for a short break in summer) and it is part of a world wide anarchist-inspired movement in which collectives of individuals take the direct action of setting up pop-up markets for free groceries. Somer participates in weekly dumpster dives, sets up the market and finds it satisfying to see people leave with several bags of perfectly good food that would have been wasted.  You can contact the Catalyst Really Really Free Market here:https://www.facebook.com/RRFMnaarm/And read more herehttps://www.shareable.net/how-to-start-a-really-really-free-market/ Local Food Connections thanks Formidable Vegetable for their song, You are What you Eat.