DSC Food Forest makes front page news

The Advocate newspaper today...

DAYLESFORD will soon boast a five-acre food forest, thanks to a partnership between Daylesford Community Food Gardeners, Daylesford Neighborhood Centre and Daylesford Secondary College. The food forest will build on permaculture principles and will boast more than 60 species of food producing plants, a poultry system and bees.
Daylesford Community Food Gardeners co-ordinator Patrick Jones said the Daylesford Secondary College Council had already approved plans and the project was now seeking funding. The food forest will be planted at Daylesford Secondary College and will be a fifth community garden for Daylesford.

Read on here.

Two stories in this week's Advocate

Garden blooms, 'decision looms'

More empathetic press in the The Advocate this week.

Please let our councillors know how much the Albert Street community food garden means to us, and how it is fast becoming a hive for social warming and just free food, open to all.

Picture: Daniel Hartley-Allen (courtesy of The Advocate)

Write your support of the garden to the following councillors:

Jon Barrell – jbarrell@hepburn.vic.gov.au
Janine Booth – jbooth@hepburn.vic.gov.au
Sebastian Klein – sklein@hepburn.vic.gov.au
Rod May – rmay@hepburn.vic.gov.au
Bill McClenaghan – bmcclenaghan@hepburn.vic.gov.au
Don Henderson – dhenderson@hepburn.vic.gov.au

Second Advocate news story

A second story has run in the Advocate this week on DCFG and the sale of Rea Lands Park.

Click for bigger.

Interestingly, Betty Rea took photographs for the Advocate newspaper in the 1970s, according to Dave Leunig and confirmed by Daylesford Museum director, David Endacott.

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."