Fringe Festival @ Conscious Caravan

Posted on by Graham

frames by leah

This festival at the Food Garden and Conscious Caravan, we have a full program of locally and internationally recognised performers and artists for your enjoyment.

Circus from the Chiploatas and friends, local blues singer Hilary Blackshaw,  story tellers Andrew McKenna and Taffy Thomas and more; along with a permanent exhibition open for the full week and half including, beautiful watercolours, a complete graffiti alley inside the Food Garden, glorious wall paper hangings, t shirts with emotion and fundraisers for the inspirational folk at OrphFund.

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The Open Food Revolution

Posted on by Graham

This is a reprint of a talk by friend of The Food Garden and avid activist for stronger connections between growers and eaters, Kirsten Larsen. It was presented this week at the Festival of Ideas, and we thought it was well worth sharing here.

Can you imagine what Melbourne’s food system will look like in 2033? Kirsten has it all sketched out in this inspiring read. Enjoy!

Melbourne as the seed of the open food revolution, when we stopped asking nicely

‘Imagine it is October 2nd 2033 and we now live in a world in which the transition to a healthy, just, and sustainable post carbon-future is well underway, so there is now real hope that catastrophic climate change will be avoided. How did this happen? What were the key obstacles and how were they overcome? ‘ Read More

So what do you do the rest of the week?

Posted on by Graham

road_homeAs we now only deliver Thursday and Friday, many of you ask “well, what do you do the rest of the week?”

I’d love to say “nothing much”, but these food boxes don’t grow themselves people!

(Well, strike that, they do actually…)

After years of working weekends, our week now starts Monday morning in the Garden, making compost, catching up on jobs, weeding, cleaning up, not much planting at the moment.

The Garden has been a bit neglected these winter months as life’s dramas and adventures have taken over, but we’ll be resuming to normal transmission very soon.

Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning is spent phoning and chatting with local growers about their harvest and crop plans for this week, lots of discussion on the weather, the markets, those pesky wholesalers, and what’s the seasons doing. Read More

Resilience in the Garden

Posted on by Graham

chestnutWalking through the garden recently, the remnants of the harsh summer just gone were still there to be seen.

The ginkgo tree all but given up for dead (twice in two years), a fig tree cutting planted “temporarily” in the corner of the garden away from the drip system, and a beautiful horse chestnut that shot up in late spring and then waned and burned through those scorching hot days.

All of these plants had been almost given up on during summer; and yet in early autumn, they all started to sprout new life.gingko

It got me thinking about the resilience and the intelligence of our neighbours in the plant kingdom. Read More

Fresh from the Garden, Zucchini Fritter Recipe

Posted on by Caithlin

Zucchini Fritters

Zucchini Fritters

Summer is the time of abundance. Autumn is too with plenty of zucchini, tomatoes,chard, zucchinis, potatoes, basil, zucchini, pumpkins and even more zucchini! In fact, mostly zucchini it seems.

If you have friends call by, whom you haven’t seen for a while, be wary, it could be they’re just looking for somewhere to off load their glut of zucchinis. We don’t really need to lock our cars in this town but at this time of year there’s a risk you’ll find it full of zucchinis if you don’t!

I actually love zucchinis, necessity is the mother of invention and I have already sent out some of my favourites to our customers. I will repeat them here eventually, but until then, here’s a new one fresh from todays picking and so delicious that I didn’t think to take a photo till I was half way through my meal. Hence the half plate photo… I was hungry and it was good!

Please be aware that when cooking with vegetables that can vary so much in size (and the zucchini is perfect for this) you may need to do some adjusting. My standing rule is taste test all the way and check consistency and above all trust your intuition! Read More

Eggplant pickle/ Kasundi

Posted on by Caithlin

WhImageen I was young….ger (because I’m still young, though strange how many years have crept by) I went to see Rickie Lee Jones in St Kilda. The lights were still up & there was just a piano on the stage. A woman came out, scarf around her head, casual clothes & runners and wiped down the top of the piano. Then she sat down & played and Then the lights went down. Not a soul in the audience had recognised her.

She was a great performer back then and both she and her band were so relaxed and having so much fun it was totally infectious .

Last night the box of eggplant never seemed to diminish as I chopped my way through it I hummed RLJs to myself.

Eggplants into cubes, they’re slippery blighters at the best of times & 6 kgs of eggplants is as many eggplants as I ever want to chop in one go. They filled my biggest pot and were exceptionally difficult to stir until they cooked down by a 1/3. I stuck with it till I had it to the point where I could leave it for the night. Read More