Many hands (September working bee)

We finally had a great day for gardening after a week of poor weather and the previous (August) working bee being washed out.

Our numbers were doubled by a group of students from Clonard College, most of whom were first time gardeners. Patrick introduced the ethics of the garden and handed out jobs.

Tracey arrived early and got to weeding one of the leek beds.

Loique worked on the other one, hidden by the broadband.

Mara, as colourful as ever, helps in this front bed too with help from ...

Chris gets those happy-pill soil microbes into his blood stream.

Tom lends an ear to the garden nymphs.

Artemisia collects up the purple Congo potatoes.

Tom loads up the beds with mature compost.

Zero hunts mice.

Meg plants some European parsley.

Ian sprays white oil on the fruit trees.

These two from Clonard College learn to set a compost.

Kim wheels the nitrogen down to the composters.

Patrick pulls out the chickweed that has been feeding us all winter. Chick weed is full of Vitamin C.

Ange returns to the district to lend a hand.

Laura from Join Adventures and Michael, the outdoor ed teacher from Clonard College, lead a weeding team.

Linda and Mara take a moment for a moment.

And Diana, one of the librarians from next door, prepares a frame to hang pollinator hotels. Diana is running a workshop for children to make them, as part of the holiday program.

Next working bee is on the second Saturday of October, 9am -12 noon. See you there!

Gardeners at the NYE parade

Perfect weather brought out forty or so gardeners with our wheelbarrows, bikes, scooters, pitchforks, horns, bells and kazoos for this year's Daylesford NYE Parade. We were dressed by the Daylesford Community Op Shop or our own creative frugality.

Tia and Jeremy won a prize for their fantastic costumes (especially the carved watermelon helmet with DCFG initials – Gold!)

Peter O'Mara painted us a beautiful banner which we showed off with great pride. Thanks Pete!

Larch Trumpetvine and Nick Sara went tandem as alligators. Every garden needs two.

Scarecrow Kate Gerritsen, Lindy Churches and a cohort of garden nymphs led us down the main drag.

Children danced or lay in a moveable manger while gumbooted Meg and Sarah stomped the beat.

Sharonne's horn and Patrick's straw dance sprayed the crowd.

And community gardener Ian Robertson spent the night busily photographing us. Thanks Ian!

More warm commentary from Costa

SBS gardening guru Costa opened the Albert Street garden back in early March. After hearing our news of securing Rea Lands Park as a permanent community food garden, and that it looks likely that Albert Street is going to become a permanent site for community food, Costa wrote this:

Yay DCFG. What a fantastic result. Congratulations on your efforts, initiative and vision to bring the issue of local food production/ security to the heart of your town. It is way way bigger than Daylesford now and sets a wonderful benchmark from which others across the nation can now build leverage and action in their respective local patches. I will be using your garden as a wonderful example of local action with global ramifications in my travels and talks. And it all began with a circular garden bed made from some hay bales in a vacant lt of land next to the library, the local school kids, some seedlings and the love and vision of your active locals.....All powers to you...I love it

Costa Georgiadis