Bridport Street Daylesford Bus Stop Precinct Upgrade

Mid 2013 a small group of gardeners initiated the Daylesford Bus Stop Precinct Upgrade. The long-term plan is to make the stop and it's immediate surrounds more reflective of Daylesford; welcoming to those visitors who arrive here, as well as being a more comfortable space for the locals who regularly wait for transport at the shelter.

We think that the swimming pool retaining wall could host some hardy, drought resistant plants such as succulents, geraniums, herbs etc. Time will tell how these would survive a hot summer... but we are hoping they would help soften the aspect of the shelter and the immediate surrounds, and in some way reflect the artistic life that is such a wonderful facet of living in Daylesford and Hepburn Springs. In time in it would be good to initiate some ‘verge’ gardening with a variety of plants on the nature strips either side of the shelter, and perhaps a tree or two in the pavement area.

To be involved or contribute thoughts & suggestions, please come and see us. We are on site every second Tuesday around 2pm. During the warm months of summer someone will often be there every couple of days early in the morning or in the evening.

You can also come along to our Daylesford Community Food Garden working bees on the 2nd Saturday of the month, next to the library.

December 14 working bee: all a-buzz!

A sunny early summer day saw more than 20 out in the garden... 

Jo, Tony, Simone and Smooch, Lindy, Paul, Alex, Dana, Lisa, Chris, Anita, Yael and Essie, Matt, Sam, Pete, Alison, Bridie and Joyce, Maureen, Ayumi, John, Sonia, Lois, Tamaya, Tiffany... weeding, planting, moving, trimming, pruning, picking, swapping, clearing, supporting, mulching, composting, talking, laughing, standing, kneeling, squatting, digging, planning, turning, tossing, pulling, wheeling, dragging, pointing, patting, scraping, mounding, spreading & watering....

Below - pictures worth a thousand words...

Lindy

Alex, Dana

Sam, Alison, Maureen

Paul, Ayumi

Anita, Peter

Yael and Essie

Matt, Jo

 Lindy, Sam, Joyce and Bridie

 Paul

Tiffany, Simone

 Ayumi, Tony

and Smooch!

Happy New Year & see you all in January 2014!

Skate Park working bee 10am – 12 midday Wednesday December 11

There's an upcoming working bee at the Skate Park on Wednesday December 11 to put down a compacted sawdust path, and to install some weed matting around the baby wattle hedge plants. This will reduce the need for slashing those areas behind the fruit trees. We’ll get underway around 10am. We need about 10 people, but all welcome! Please bring shovels, old tent pegs and wheelbarrows.

This regular visitor (below) has been at us for a few weeks to get onto this, so let's make them happy!

Reminder: the next Albert Street working bee is Saturday December 14... 

Water Roster Call Out

Hello all...

This is an initial call out for water roster volunteers for the Albert Street garden, next to the library, for the coming hotter months. I'm planning to put together a roster for Dec + Jan over the next couple of weeks so could willing people please let me know their availability.

Each person, or family group, will be asked to take on a weekly slot. Each week the garden will need watering perhaps twice... maybe less if it rains... maybe 3 times if it's scorching! Each watering usually takes 20-30 minutes. Another person will be rostered on for the same week to make sure the garden is adequately looked after. All you need for watering is on-site.

Also, anyone is welcome to be a casual participant... if you drop by and it looks parched, feel free to sprinkle!
(nb: on hot days watering is best done early morning, or late afternoon/evening.) 

All our recent plantings of tomatoes, coriander, basil and spinach, to name some, will be grateful for your involvement!

Can interested people please contact me
Pete O'Mara 5348 1154 Many thanks!

The pricelessness of community-made social spaces

Albert Street garden...

November Working Bee

We had an enthusiastic & energetic November working bee and swap meet with more than 20 gardeners... all of them bricks! in action amidst continually changing conditions...

Lots of plantings, seedlings & seeds: tomatoes, coriander, basil, spinach, to name some. Lots of composting: distributing, spreading, tossing & turning, and building new heaps...

Lots of maintenance: with edging, weeding, mulching, staking and consolidating the beds, plus overhead wires for the banana passion-fruit... there was also painstaking attention brought to the coddling moth infestation outside the library (thank-you Paul!)

Lots of conferring and co-operations...

Lots of hello’s... to familiar and new faces...

...to a young Rose...

and a (temporary) good-bye to an old (but eternally young!) face...

see you later Patrick!... all the best to you Meg Zephyr Woody & Zero for the next adventure!

Meeting @ Meeting

Another DCFG working group meeting was held at Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre to further refine handover roles and responsibilities. Acknowledgement was given to the Dja Dja Wurrung and us, the people of our local community. Also, the meeting recognized the remarkable input of Meg Ulman, blogger extraordinaire and steady hand of the Ulman-Jones realm. We thank-you Meg for all your contributions and love.

The meeting brainstormed a list of DCFG Aims. A final 12 was decided upon and listed on the whiteboard. The aims listed below are a basic understanding of our shared intent and participation, not definitive, graded or constituted. A snapshot of DCFG in November 2103. You are welcome to randomly throw them up in the air and see where they land. Or sing them as a mantra in the garden….

1. Organic Food Production

2. Abundance

3. Common Ground

4. Social Warming

5. Joy

6. Raise Awareness

7. Community Participation

8. Learning

9. Inclusive

10. Inspire

11. Group Sustainability

12. Local resilience

Patrick further fleshed out DCFG structural roles with a focus on communication. Showing exemplary white-board skills Patrick conjured up a dynamic map diagram (see below) of what is required to ensure that DCFG remains in open communication both internally and with wider community. The meeting agreed with the roles outlined. Other noted roles were.

.

• Luke to be general info contact 

• Tia to assist Kate with Facebook

• Ian to be blog contact

• Event facilitators to provide blog write up+ photos to Ian

• Pete to be Hepburn Shire contact 

In keeping with our recognition of the need for strong communication, it was decided that a general DCFG meeting would be held bi-monthly. The meeting schedule roughly coincides with the six seasons of the Wombat Forest as identified by local field naturalist Tanya Loos. These seasons are early spring (late Aug-Sept), true spring (Oct-Dec), early summer (mid Dec-Jan), late summer (late Jan-March), autumn (April-May) and winter (June-mid Aug). Tanya notes that indigenous Australians have long understood that our continent has more than four seasons. We acknowledge that understanding here. See Tanya’s Daylesford Nature Dairy website for more information.

The meetings will be held at Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre commencing at 7.00pm with a firm resolve to finish at 8.30pm. 

DCFG meetings are open to all people.

Tuesday 3 Dec 2013

Tuesday 4 Feb 2014

Tuesday 1 April

Tuesday 3 June

Tuesday 5 August

Tuesday 7 October

Tuesday 2 Dec

In closing the meeting discussion was held about garden signage and possible general information poster. Further dialogue on these has been held over to next meeting. Along with other stuff. Will keep you posted!!

Pete O'Mara

Distribution of roles

Last night the DCFG working group met at Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre to discuss the handover of roles and responsibilities for a new era of management and participation. Patrick Jones and Meg Ulman are about to head off for a year of travel and they had been doing much of the co-ordination since the inception of the group.

Those present at the meeting included: Tony Soccio, Lena Mazza, Sam Tucker, Georgina Williams, Luke Pither, Lindy Churches, Su Dennett, Jo Kidd, Patrick Jones, Peter O'Mara, Alison Wilken, Maureen Corbett, Dora Berenyi and Fiona Porter. Apologies included: Ian Robertson, Ruby Scott, Anthony Petrucci, Mara Macs, Kate Gerritsen, Meg Ulman, David Holmgren and Paul Dempsey.

The meeting was facilitated by Peter O'Mara who first acknowledged the Jaara people, the First Peoples of the lands we now garden upon and of whom we have much to learn from, especially in terms of sustainability, land stewardship and ecological ethics. Peter then skillfully helped the group to structure the agenda, breaking it down into six areas for discussion:

1. Achievements
2. Future projects and roles
3. Aims
4. Structure
5. Resourcing
6. Engagement

Patrick spoke about DCFG achievements over the past three years:

1. Albert Street annual food garden
2. Rea Lands Park perennial food garden
3. Daylesford Neighbourhood Centre (DNC) food gardens and insurance
4. Daylesford Community Reserve (accessible) food garden
5. Daylesford Secondary College (DSC) Food Forest plan
6. Bus shelter vertical (accessible) garden
7. Hepburn Health (accessible) raised beds
8. The Arc food garden

Other achievements, he stated, included establishing long-term council leases, broad community support, (currently 530 Facebook friends), learning and participation opportunities, successful fundraising campaigns and inspiring documentation. Patrick stated that the original intentions of DCFG were to create a non-membership, fully inclusive, non-private plot community food network whose participants met to discuss developments at working bees and at other informal gatherings. Whereas he believed this has worked well in establishing the gardens, it had meant that a centralised management developed which he believed was not sustainable or necessarily desirable.

The group thanked Patrick and Meg for their contribution.

Discussion and distribution of roles then took place. The following roles were proposed by Patrick and agreed upon by the group:

1. HWC/U3A/Bus Shelter contact/ co-ordinator: Lena Mazza
2. Albert St gardener/DSC/Insurance roll contact: Alison Wilken
3. Albert St working bee co-ordinator: Tony Soccio
4. Albert St working bee co-ordinator: Sam Tucker
5. Albert St Harvest Swapmeet co-ordinator: Lindy Churches
6. Albert St water roster co-ordinator: Peter O'Mara
7. DSC/ Rea Lands Park/ The Arc contact: Luke Pither
8. Hepburn Health contact/ Rea Lands Park herbalist/ Insurance roll: Jo Kidd
9. DNC working bee co-ordinator: Mara Macs
10. DNC working bee co-ordinator: Anthony Petrucci
11. Rural Access liaison/ Hepburn Health contact: Fiona Porter
12. DCFG Facebook coordinator/ HSC contact/ event photographer: Kate Gerritsen
13. DCFG blogger/ graphic designer/ event photographer: Ian Robertson
14. DSC student contact: Ruby Scott
15. Daylesford Community Park food garden co-ordinator: Georgina Williams
16. HRN contact: Maureen Corbett
17. HRN contact: Su Dennett
18. Community Op-shop and Food Bank contact: Dora Berenyi
19. Community food/ permaculture consultant: David Holmgren
20. Community gardener/ consultant: Paul Dempsey

It was also agreed that if one has to leave their role it is their personal responsibility to find someone to replace them before they leave it. Discussion then turned to future projects and developments. The DSC project was mentioned, as was U3A participation, greater Hepburn Health, DNC and Food Bank involvement and more joint HRN and DCFG projects and events.

The group then discussed future aims, which included: ongoing actions, increasing community participation, improving communications and awareness, promoting learning opportunities, remaining open and continuing to inspire.

The structural aspects of DCFG were then discussed including the account at Wombat Hill Nursery, DNC exchange, social media, insurance protocols (listing working bee participants), liaising with council (annual report, leases etc), points of contact, answering emails, documenting events, archiving developments, chalkboard notices, etc. Patrick stated he would write a more comprehensive list of duties and distribute amongst the group (see publication at the end of this post). Then general discussion and merriment took place around future organisation.

The group decided to leave resourcing and engagement to another meeting, which was made for Tuesday 5 November at 7pm, again to be held at DNC. Peter O'Mara agreed to book that meeting and facilitate it. The group collected $16 of 'gold coins' to pay for the use of the DNC meeting room.

Distribution and description of roles (printable and downloadable document)

New Beds Planted

Update on the new beds at the health service

The Daylesford Community Health Garden has now been planted out, thanks to our wonderful volunteers Dale (far right) and Leonie (far left). If you feel like giving the plants a water, the watering can is located underneath the bread in the reception area. Soon we will have even more fresh produce to share with the community.

New raised beds at the health service

Last week two garden beds have been built in the front garden of the Daylesford Campus of Hepburn Health Service (Corner of Jamieson and Hospital Street Daylesford). The Thursday gardening group run by the Shire will be maintaining the garden every Thursday along with staff and clients of the Hepburn Health Service, all the materials were donated by Daylesford Gardening Supplies and Home Hardware, labour to build the bed was volunteered by a local builder called PJ, Sam Tucker (DFCG) also volunteered his time to design and locate the beds. Hepburn Health Service staff will be using the space to grow different varieties of food that can be then given to welfare clients, welfare/social workers are able to use the space to take clients to talk and garden at the same time, this is then a pathway to encourage people to engage in the community garden next to the library, encouraging isolated people towards social interaction and physical exercise - a positive way to access free food. There is one accessible bed for people with mobility issues and one ground level bed. The Hepburn Health Service would like to kindly thank all of the people involved.

September working bee

A quieter working bee this month with just twelve of us getting out in the cold spring weather and the photographer going home before proceedings really got under way.

We planted out beetroot, cos lettuce, broccoli, peas and some more strawberries.

The edging we laid last working bee has settled in and we added mature compost to these beds.

Looking forward to a warmer October working bee and our numbers back to usual force. We will be calling a meeting soon about all the various roles being filled when Meg and Patrick and their family take off for their year long adventure. If you want to get involved in more of the organisational aspects of DCFG please contact us or leave a comment here.