Category: Food

Seeding Community Spirit

It’s almost a year since the concept of a local Seed Library was introduced at the original Blue Sky Festival. Inspired by the one Swan Shire launched early in 2018, a small bunch of MiT people (who hang out at Cafe Mojo’s Wednesday mornings) decided to give the idea a go in the Hills (great coffee makes you bold).

Our fabulous local Librarian Helen (and wonderful staff) got right behind the idea, so we could publicly launch at the festival. All we had then were the printed donation bags and a whole lot of faith that our community would get behind such a worthwhile project. And you haven’t let us down. People in the Mundaring Shire rock!! In fact, we are apparently one of the few libraries that have done this ENTIRELY with seeds donated from the community.

We’re doing an audit at the moment to report back some interesting loan data, but so far we know that over 128 varieties of seeds were offered and 1000s of packets were delivered for the opening. A modest, but very proud beginning wouldn’t you say! Happily, the donations are still arriving at the Albert Facey Library, so our goal of a sustainable collection is looking promising. To extend our donation base into the future, the Seed Library group are also really interested in liaising with local schools …. where our future growers are.

We invite you all to get involved too. There are currently a small, but growing, bunch of volunteers who are helping to process donated seed. Thankyou so much Ralph & Lynne, Gina, Cheryl & Laurence, Julie, Liz, Jenny, Sarah and Lori. And very grateful also to Mundaring Sharing for allowing us to use the backroom for the latest seed saving morning. A real community effort.

Seed Library is LIVE!!

All the hard work and contributions by our community of local seed savers, the Library staff and the Seed Group volunteers has paid off, the Seed Library is open for borrowing. Our embryonic collection is small, so borrowing must initially be limited, but all you’ll need is your usual Library membership. Then you can borrow, grow, save and share. Of course, you also get to eat the produce or enjoy the flowers. Then, we hope you’ll be inspired to save some seed to return. The whole purpose is to steadily increase the collection of open pollinated, locally adapted seeds to share among our community. Stay tuned for Seed Saving Info talks.

If you’d like to join the seed saving conversation on Facebook CLICK HERE 

Exciting possibilities for schools 

If your school can see the potential benefits of linking plant/food production from soil, to seed, to plate, then on to a perennial social purpose, contact the Seed Group to discuss how we can work together. 

A growing community celebration

Help celebrate your community Seed Library! Donations of plants, seedlings, seeds and garden stuff to share.and definitely $$$$ will be very gratefully put towards supporting the costs of getting thie Seed Library up & running. Seed donations for the Library will always be welcomed. Lots of free family activities too! Origami seed envelope folding; newspaper seed starting tubes; children’s garden art. Also, a sneak peak at the Seed Library

Bacon & sausages (like they used to make)

How much fun did we have at this Makin’ Bacon & Sausages workshop on Saturday! (Booked out in a day from the “first dibs” offering on the newsletter) Thank you so much Jo Thierfelder for this AMAZING video.

We share your passion to make real, good, food more accessible locally and build some great social capital into the bargain. Think it worked! Of course, not everybody in MiT (or the Climate Change scene) agrees with the meat bit, but there’s a whole other argument developing about the sustainability of Regenerative Ag that definitely includes animals

A community seed bank at the Library … now we need your seeds

Photo courtesy of Bruce Hunt, Community News. Read more here http://bit.ly/2G4srtL

Don’t compost all of those vegies and herbs going to seed in your gardens right now …. we need your seeds! We’re collecting now to generate the borrowing stock for the new seed bank which will appear soon at the Albert Facey Library in Mundaring. How exciting is that!

Obviously, we need some information about the seeds too. What type and variety of plant, as well as where and when it was grown. You can record all that on the paper bags (in two sizes) the Library has kindly made available at the front desk. You can use those (or ones from home), with one type of seed per bag. We prefer paper over plastic because it’s important that the seeds don’t sweat or get moist. Don’t forget to fill out as much info about the seeds as you can. Here’s a link to the donation form if you’d like to print them off at home, just click on the picture below.

 

Blue Sky Festival in Mundaring Sat 17 March

Help us spread the word far and wide about this showcase of sustainability & environmentally friendly stuff you can access up here in the Hills. Then come and join the fun on the day. It will be AWESOME!

MiT are just one of the groups deeply involved in organising this Festival. It’s a local, minimal waste event based on a variety of environmental themes. Plenty of food vans with healthy food using GO2CUPS re-usable crockery & real cutlery (our own little War on Waste solution).
There will be talks, stalls, music, food & fun for everyone. Heaps of totally FREE activities for kids as well.
CONTACT US IF YOU HAVE A SUSTAINABLE, REGENERATIVE BUSINESS OR GROUP AND WOULD LIKE A STALL. NON-FOOD STALLS ARE FREE!!!!

 

No waste, no worries … make cider

Thanks to our wonderful MiT volunteer apple pickers, a large proportion of the 700kg we sourced for our Community Apple Cider Making Day were windfalls. Saved from the waste pile, but perfectly fine for cider.
A whole bunch of Hills locals gathered at Jodie & Mark Hutton’s characterful home on the rural outskirts of Mundaring to be part of the hectic, hands-on buzz of transforming a huge trailer load of fruit into wonderful cider juice. Peter Lewis-Affleck did a fabulous job of explaining the history & the processes of cider making, and coordinated all the energetic activity. An impromtu (and incredibly generous) donation of organic pears by Rob of POP – Parkerville Organic Produce was wildly popular, adding to the great community spirit of the day. Still plenty of time for sharing stories, making new contacts, swapping food ideas, drinking good coffee and best of all: having hosts who just kept the woodfired pizzas coming for hours! Legends.

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