Sustainability News Autumn 2016
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Autumn 2016 Inside This Issue... • Free seeds from Northcote Library Food Garden Welcome to the Autumn edition of Sustainability News • Famer Incubator Pop-Up Garlic at Edwardes Lake Park to offer Project in Darebin advice in relation to saving energy • Grow you own! - what to plant in and water at home, composting and autumn worm farming, solar energy and • Darebin’s Homemade Food and urban food production. It is always a Wine Festival great festival, so please come along! • Reservoir Urban Harvest Also of note is the upcoming ‘Merri • Re-route that rain! Creek: from wastelands to parklands’ • Plants and trees for birds and exhibition which will be showing bees at Northcote and Preston libraries during May. The exhibition shows • Less than 50! how volunteers have restored • Community owned renewable Welcome to the Autumn 2016 edition the trail to its natural glory, and energy projects of Sustainability News. celebrates the transformation of • Making the most of your smart the much-loved waterway and its meter and interval data As the Mayor, I am pleased to have spectacular aftermath. Thanks to the opportunity to communicate with the volunteers’ efforts over several • Council saves money on you about environmental issues, decades the trail is now an oasis in streetlight costs events and projects that matter to a dense urban area and provides a • Bicycle courses our community. dazzling display of wildlife, botany • Shared path etiquette and tranquillity. First of all, I’d like to invite you to • Darebin’s Sustainable Living come along to Darebin’s Sustainable Finally, a reminder about Council’s Expo, and Community and Kite Living Expo on Saturday 2 April Festival Community Support Program at Preston Shire and City Halls. which provides grants and in-kind • Food Know How - store it The expo will showcase a range support for community groups and right and save and upcoming of local environmental groups and organisations. Over the years many workshop businesses that provide ‘green’ community groups have secured • Litter aware in Autumn goods and services. There’ll also a Council grant and delivered be workshops and advice about projects which have brought great • Plastic pollution - a real menace sustainable living including green for our marine environment environmental benefits. There’s home design and renovations, further details about the Community • Recycling soft plastics and plastic minimising food waste, solar energy Support Program later in this edition. packaging and much more. The event is free • Merri Creek exhibition and there are door prizes to be For more information about Council’s won, so I’d encourage to take this sustainability and environmental opportunity to learn more about living programs, visit darebin.vic.gov.au/ in harmony with the environment. environment Darebin Council Environment & Natural Resources The Environment and Natural Councillor Vince Fontana PO Box 91 Preston 3072 Resources team will also be on Ph: 8470 8405 hand at Council’s Community and Mayor, Darebin City Council Email: [email protected] Festival on Sunday 20 March www.darebin.vic.gov.au/environment TTY (Hearing Impaired): 8470 8696 Multilingual Telephone Line: 8470 8470 SUSTAINABLE FOOD & GARDENING Free seeds from the 2016 Farmer Incubator pop-up garlic project taking Northcote Library place in Darebin! Food Garden (NLFG) With the average age of farmers Melbourne, including a site in As part of the Darebin in Australia tipping 53 years Bundoora. Up to 5 participants at Community Leaders in old, Farmer Incubator has been each site will each grow 500 garlic Sustainability Program, and established to support and facilitate plants during the growing season with the help of a 2015/16 young people to become successful which runs from autumn to early Darebin Community Support farmers and sustain our food summer. The project fee of $490 Grant, Kerrie Ludekens has production into the future. The per person includes garlic seed, established the NLFG seed idea behind The Pop-up Garlic access to the growing site and seven bank. Kerry has collected and Farmers project is to give potential workshops covering everything from catalogued Italian parsley, new farmers a chance to start cultivation to selling the harvested lettuce, silverbeet and fennel small. It is about novices working product. Committed growers can seeds from the NLFG, cooperatively to each get a leg up, make at least their money back and recording use-by date and and start acquiring the knowledge more! and resources they need to farm best time to plant. The Seed Registrations for the 2016 project independently in the future. The Bank will help protect valuable close on March 19. For more project ran for the first time in 2015 heirloom and locally adapted information on the workshops or and was a great success, involving seeds. It will also promote sites, and to register, please visit 12 participants including 10 women. food security by strengthening www.farmerincubator.org or contact the local food system. For the 2016 project, Farmer Farmer Per at farmerincubator@ Kerrie and the NLFG are Incubator is inviting 20 participants gmail.com or 0410 621 485 offering seeds to Darebin to grow garlic at one location in home gardeners free of charge. Collect them from the NLFG at their working bees or from the Northcote Library; Western Victoria and three in Preston Customer Service Centre, 274 Gower Street; the Kiln Café, 85C Clyde Street, Thornbury; and the Darebin Information and Volunteer Resource Service, 285–287 High Street, Preston. The NLFG are looking for more members to share the experience of growing and sharing healthy organic food together. The NLFG is next door to the Northcote Library at 32 – 38 Separation Street. Email northcotelibraryfoodgarden@ Grow your own! What to plant in autumn... gmail.com or phone 8470 8888 Vegetables and herbs grown at home are often more nutritious and fresh, and so better for your health. It is also better for the environment if you grow Working bees: Second your own as this reduces chemical use in soils, food miles and packaging. Sunday of the month 10am, Here is what you can plant in your vegie garden in autumn. except long weekends. Autumn working bee dates: • Artichoke March 20, April 10, May 8 • Broad beans • Brussel sprouts • Cauliflower • Garlic • Lemongrass • Onion • Parsnip • Peas For a copy of our Sow What When Guide, visit www. • Shallots darebin.vic.gov.au/en/Darebin-Living/Caring-for-the- • Spinach environment/SustainableLiving Page 2 2016 Homemade Food and Wine Festival 9 – 15 May The immensely popular Homemade GREEN Food and Wine Festival is on again BUSINESS from 9 – 15 May, with the ‘Meet Less than 50 the Makers’ expo being held on Saturday 14 May in the Preston We have nearly 10% of City and Shire Halls. Council will be Darebin households with supporting some of our Backyard solar on their roof tops. This Harvest Festival gardeners and other equates to approximately passionate local sustainable food 4,625 installations. Contrast leaders in holding home grown and to this, we have less than homemade food workshops and For more information see www. a 0.5% of businesses with events. The program will be available darebinarts.com.au/foodandwine or solar installations. This in April. call 8470 8593. equates to less than 50 businesses. New Reservoir urban harvest Solar makes sense for Swap your excess garden produce at the 2nd Saturday (Northcote, Uniting business. Businesses Transition Darebin’s Urban Harvest Church forecourt, 251 High St, 11am- use the energy they are Swaps in Northcote and Reservoir. 12pm) and 3rd Saturday (Reservoir, producing at the time Bring along your excess fruit, vegies, Cnr Cheddar Rd and Broadway, they are producing it. herbs, honey, eggs, seeds and 10am-11am). For more info go to Payback times are good seedlings to share and chat with other www.transitiondarebin.org.www. and there are an array of local backyard growers. Monthly on transitiondarebin.org financing options that mean businesses can be cash SUSTAINABLE HOMES & COMMUNITIES flow positive from day one, Re-route that rain! with no upfront costs and system repayments often Downpipe diverters are a simple details on our website or contact: matching or being less than and effective way to make use of the [email protected] the savings made on their rainwater that comes off your roof electricity bills. and would otherwise disappear down the drain. By installing a downpipe Business installations diverter, you can filter and redirect are typically larger than the water from your downpipe into residential. The largest in a hose to use on your garden or Darebin is a 200kw system lawn. Diverting rainwater reduces the at Complete Food Services amount of water being discharged in Preston and the average into sewers and stormwater size is around 36 kw as drains, and provides an alternative compared to the average water source for garden and lawn sized residential installation maintenance – reducing your water of a 2.5 kw system. bill. Council is planning a workshop Darebin Council is trying about Downpipe Diverters for this to help change this by Autumn – keep an eye out for more offering Darebin businesses Plants and trees for birds and bees - creating habitats a bulk buy price for solar installations. Not for profit for wildlife in your garden organisations will also have As climate change intensifies it Free event. Registration essential at the chance to apply for the becomes more and more important to www.sustainablecommunities.vic.gov. Darebin Solar Saver and give nature a helping hand on private au pay back their solar systems land. At this workshop the passionate through their rates. To ecologists and educators at Latrobe register and find out more Wildlife Sanctuary will guide us go to www.darebin.vic.gov.