backyard community garden party

Betty’ garden party was a great event with 40 people coming to celebrate the work of five Sustainable Communities members working with Betty in rejuvenating her backyard vegie patch and fruit trees. Betty is 83 and not able to do the work herself. It was when neighbour Tania suggested working together cooperatively that it all started 9 months ago. The result is fruit and vegetables and also friendship and support. We celebrated, shared food, explored the garden and  listened to talks. Let me know if you would like to be a community group backyard garden volunteers.

solar cars and great students

This morning I met the Willetton Secondary High School team from Perth arriving in their Solar Car -”Solar Flair” - from Darwin. The car had travelled 906 kilometres under solar power. It was driven by 4 of the adults travelling with a group of twenty four 12 to 15 year old Gifted and Talented students. Each student had played a part in preparing the car for the Challenge and each of them had a role to play on the trip from Darwin to Adelaide to keep a record of the journey. One 13 year old boy told me he had worked on the electrics but he was really a computer geek! I heard that along the way he had shown the Michigan State University team how to down load some information they were wanting. Great hope for our solar future.

Climate Action Day

There are many actions happening around the world for climate action day on Saturday and Sunday. The aim is to bring climate change to the attention of our leaders before Copenhagen in December. We want the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere to be reduced to 350 parts per million from its current dangerous level. We can all play our part in lowering our footprint by reducing our use of resources. I hope you were able to join an action. Have a look at what happened around the world on www.350.org

Feasting on low footprint food

There were 27 members at the Cooking and Feasting on low footprint food on Sunday. We had a great spread with African sweet potato and peanut stew; spinach, mushroom and walnut lasagne; mushroom, pumpkin and tofu curry; Javanese stir fried tempe; kangaroo paprika stew; egg and tomato curry with seasonal vegetables served with millet and brown rice. And there was a beetroot dip and salad with local vegetables. All the food was valued for its footprint as well as nutritional value. One of the best parts of the event was the opportunity for people to talk and get to know each other better.

Cooking & feasting

Sowing the seeds of sustainability

Sustainable Communities NPSP features on the front page of the latest East Torrens Messenger with an article about community group gardens. Let’s hope there’s a great response from the community and lots of new garden projects as a result.

Growing food on the verge

We are delighted to know that we can now use the verge for productive planting. My broadbeans are still doing well and yesterday someone helped themselves to my last mini cauliflower. My only hope is that the three young men who took it as they passed by enjoyed eating it. We will all be sensible about the things we plant so that people can get out of their cars at the kurb and that there are no prickly plants. I expect to enjoy tomatoes, eggplants and capsicum. Last year the zucchinis did well and I will plant some more. I hope you enjoy your food growing too.

Sharing a backyard vegetable garden

We have had a wonderful neighbourhood planting of a backyard vegetable garden needing someone to care for it. About 3 square metres of garden has been prepared and planted with eggplant, tomato, cucumber, choko and herbs. Next week we will plant pumpkin, zucchini and sweet potato. There were about 12 of us enjoying this first celebratory day of a new shared vegetable garden. I know more people who would like to be part of a community group gardening together. So if you have spare garden space and are willing to share with others let me know.

Recycling and reusing through hard rubbish collection

Hard rubbish collection has been a great source of things to help with my expanding vegetable growing – pots big and small, trays, a potting table as well as buckets and storage bins for straw. Reusing things others have finished with is a great way of recycling and preventing a little bit being crushed up and dumped in the landfill.

Hard rubbish collection is nearly finished in our area for this year but perhaps we could be more organised next year and try and reuse more things especially to reduce, even a little, the great problem of landfill.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93748510@N00/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Torrens Street Party will show electric bikes

On Sunday the electric bikes ‘urbanmover’ were on display at Lochiel Park Sustainability Centre. We have arranged for Mic to show them at the Torrens Street Party on Sunday 20 September. You can try them out too. They look good and will be a great way of helping some of us to use the car less.

Torrens Street Party is celebrating Car-free day on Torrens Street College Park. The street will be officially closed from 11am to 3pm with lots of activity – sharing produce, LETS (Local Exchange Trading Scheme), mosaics, skills workshops, dancing, music and more.

Go to the Events page for more information about how to get to Torrens Street without your car.

See you there.

How do you get to meetings without a car?

Yesterday I went to two Sustainable Community Group meetings. Some of us travelled by car – small, diesel and ordinary. However three people came on two wheels. SA came on her smart small electric motor bike and SM came on her bicycle which has a strong board on the back where she can attach the seat for her four year old son but yesterday she had a big washing basket with her laundry and last week she carried home a compost bin and some pots given her by another member. And A came on his ordinary bike. However he also has a tandem bike to ride with his partner and folding bikes. He and his partner are setting out with the folding bikes for a holiday – train to Port Augusta, small bus to Parachilna and then riding their folding bikes and walking in the Flinders Ranges.

Did you hear that at Lochiel Park the Land Management Corporation are buying 12 bicycles – ordinary and electric for residents to hire for shopping, riding to the O’Bahn or visiting around the Park?  I hope they will be used for getting to meetings.

Get your bicycle out for the Torrens Street Party for Car-Free Day on Sunday 20 September. Have a look at the Events page – it is all there.

old bike