Grants and Quotes

Today we're going to get kickstarted with quotes so we can apply for some community grants. We need to research things like kid safe sleepers, closed compost bins, a tool shed, a slimline water tank and good quality soil. We are hoping to get as many quotes as possible so we can hand them in with our funding applications. We have got plenty of grants to fill out from Brisbane City Council and local community groups. Wish us luck!

News

Community garden group is moving along well, had our first AGM recently where 26 keen locals attended. A general committee of 11 people was formed. The general committee has formed 3 sub committees;
1. Constitution, Finance and Council Liason
2. Fundraising, Marketing and Promotion
3. Garden Construction, Planning and Planting

We also have a strong supporter base of 85 people who have expressed an interest in the garden and are on our email/mailing list.

Design plans are in....waiting for approval from council :-)

Morning Tea

Yesterday morning we visited the Beeralong Community Garden at Morningside. They had a beautiful garden setting that has been running for quite some time now. Everything is organic and the farm is fully sustainable.

Check out their site after the jump.....


www.beelarong.org.au/

Field Trip!

On Tuesday we visited the famous Northey Street City Farm. We went on a free tour of the giant four hectare site run by one of the volunteers Gary each tuesday at 9.30am. He showed us through each of the different sections of the farm including the bush tucker trees, the compost rollers and the kitchen garden.

Although the farm is a lot larger than our proposed area, the Northey St farm inspired us to keep working towards our goal of an established community garden.

Check out the Northey St City Farm website after the jump.

http://www.nscf.org.au/

After a free lunch prepared from the fresh produce on the farm we travelled on up to Chermside to visit the Burnie Brae community garden. This is a relatively new community garden with only 2 years of growing under their belt. The garden is beautifully upkept with raised garden beds for easy access to everyone. The people working there were very helpful and provided us with some contacts to get us going.

Will put up some photos soon!

Nambour Garden Expo

Last week we attended the fabulous Garden Expo 2010. We got there early and headed straight for the giant kitchen garden to get some great info for our community garden. We saw a great presentation from Jerry Coleby-Williams.
He gave us some great ideas for getting the kids involved. Using cheap styrofoam boxes the kids can grow herbs and vegies on their balcony, kick starting our community garden before it has even started! These boxes stacked together are also a great way to build a worm farm.
However, if you want a more modern type of worm farm, these colourful bins are a great idea!


We wandered around and saw some great garden ideas.






















There was also this really cool solar cooker. A great way to sustainably cook anything you want!

We got a billion booklets and and contacts and really look forward to utilizing all this information for our own community garden in the very near future.

Healthy Kids!

Last week at The Exchange we had some cool activities planned for the school holidays. On wednesday we made hulla hoops and let the kids decorate them with colourful tape. We also did cool face painting. After the kids were exhausted from all the wonderful creativity, we made vegetable faces! Getting the idea from the recent Go for 2 or 5 fruit and veg campaign, we set up bread as the face bases and let the kids decorate them with various vegetables such as celary, carrot, cucumber, bean sprouts and cherry tomatoes.
We also provided some apples and healthy dips such as hummos and olive and feta. The kids really enjoyed themselves both making the faces and eating them at the end!

Hopefully when our garden gets going we will be able to enjoy these activies using our own produce!!