We had a great start to 2015 in January with an abundance! It was to be a great start to a great year.
There was a variety of summer fruits in February, in addition to the summer vegetables and herbs. Plums, nashis and tomatoes were the highlights.
We had 2 swaps in March; the 1st Saturday as usual with banana plants that were too tall to fit into vehicles, and a twilight swap at the Earth Hour event held at Maroondah Federation Estate instead of the 1st Saturday of April. Figs, apples and fejoia were the flavours of autumn.
Croydon Food Swap became Outer Eastern Permaculture Swap in May 2015 and we started at our new venue in Glen Park Oaks Community Garden. Citrus started making an appearance in June.
We celebrated our 3rd anniversary in July with another bountiful swap and a talk on soil by Diana. We also announced the winner of our first ever competition (thanks to Jess who’s a keen recycler/upcycler), CFS Recycling Challenge who won the prize of Jackie French’s Guide to Companion Planting book. The winning entry was Joan’s in-ground composting solution.
We were all still surprisingly productive in August. Woz so kindly came to demonstrate fruit tree grafting technique and taught us about scions and rootstocks. On the 3rd Sunday of August, Outer Eastern Permaculture hosted the 1st swap at Wonga Park, where Kaye Roberts-Palmer from the “Save our Citrus” campaign, presented information on citrus gall wasp. So we now have 2 swaps a month at 2 different venues. Thanks Kirsty and Edible Forest Gardens for hosting the 3rd Sunday swap.
We welcomed spring in September with Shane sharing about the uses of used coffee grounds at Glen Park Oaks Community Garden and John Ferris speaking on companion planting at Edible Forest Gardens. In October, Jan demonstrated making tea from things grown in our gardens. We tasted many interesting tea blends.
When you see strawberries, you know that summer is around the corner. But there was still lots of seedlings to be swapped and planted at the November meet. We celebrated a wonderful year of swaps with ‘Swap Kringle’ at Bayswater North and a lovely shared morning tea at Wonga Park.
Thanks everyone for making this a successful year and let’s keep sharing! See you again in 2016!
Outer Eastern Permaculture Swap 