Follow the progress of the Summer Garden in Sydney Park by following our photos on our Facebook page – www.facebook.com/Sydneycityfarm.
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Join the Summer Garden at Sydney Park
Calling on all City Farm supporters to sign up and become a volunteer, or Cityfarmer with the new Summer Garden program being run by City of Sydney at Sydney Park from its Launch on Saturday January 19 until its Harvest event on March 24.
The Summer Garden will give us an exciting taste of the City Farm which is being developed by City of Sydney, the Powerhouse Museum and the City Farm Advisory Group.
As Cityfarmer volunteers we will help plant food crops and join a roster to water, weed and maintain the Summer Garden until we celebrate our harvest together at a final event on March 24.
Every weekend the Summer Garden will include fun workshops on urban sustainability, including no-dig gardening, sheep-dog trials, talks by farmers and talks on how to find quality, fresh food.
Book yourself in at greenvillages.com.au/upcoming-workshops before they‘re booked out out.
Watch this space – greenvillages.com.au/city-farm-summer-garden – for more information on the launch and harvest events.
To register as an official Cityfarmer volunteer Email: cityfarm@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au .
A Cookbook that saves food, money and the planet!
OzHarvest is launching its first ever cookbook featuring ‘food rescue’ recipes from 44 of the country’s most celebrated chefs, including Maggie Beer, George Calombaris, Peter Gilmore, Bill Granger and Neil Perry.
From the moment I picked up the OzHarvest Cookbook I knew it was different. With it’s dramatic yellow titled cover and distinctive binding, printed on forest stewardship certified recycled paper I could tell this was a book that walked its talk.
The OzHarvest mission is simple – collect left-over food from restaurants, cafes, supermarkets and take-aways and deliver it quickly and safely to charities that feed people. It’s a mission that resonates with everyone who can’t bear to see good food thrown away. Reducing food waste is a fundamental component of living more sustainably – in the book we learn that dumping a kilo of beef wastes the 50,000 litres of water it took to produce that meat. In this country we dump 4 million tonnes of food per year, worth $7.8Billion – 178kg per person per year sent to landfill.
The chefs who support founder Ronni Kahn’s vision of rescuing food to feed people are a roll call of our most celebrated chefs: Maggie Beer, Guillaume Brahimi, George Collombaris, Peter Gilmore, Bill Granger, Christine Manfield, Stefano Manfredi, Lyndey Milan, Matt Moran, Justin North, Neil Perry, Jeremy Strode, Simon Thomsen – and more. We learn a little about each chef and they share three of their favourite recipes,mostly with a food rescue element.
I discovered how I could rescue:
- Egg-yolks into icecream
- Stale bread into bread sauce
- Over-ripe tomatoes into pickles
- Over-ripe fruit into flans and cakes
- Cooked meat into pies
- Left over potatoes into frittata, and
- Thai curry into turnovers
And the bonus is how fantastic the recipes are – Peter Gilmore’s Chocolate mousse; Maggie Beer’s Apricot, almond & rosemary clafoutis; Neil Perry’s Chicken salad; Adam Liaw’s Huevos coreanos (baked eggs with chili tomatoes); Matt Moran’s Panzanella, Kumar Mahedevan’s Beetroot halwa. I was intrigued by ‘peasant food’ recipes like Logan Campbell’s Egyptian Kushari – spicy left over lentils and rice and Somer Sivrioglu’s Greek Papara – a yoghurt and meat dish that features left over rice and stale bread.
With the OzHarvest Cookbook on our bookshelf, Cityfarmers can feel equipped to walk our talk. Not only will we have a collection of delicious and easy to make recipes from Australia’s top chefs, we will contribute to reducing the amount of food we waste each year, which will also save us money.
Visit OzHarvest site to buy your own copy in time for Christmas. Every dollar raised by sales will go to feeding those in need.
Thanks to Director and Founder Ronni Kahn, who generously gave us a Cookbook to give away at our AGM on December 11. It was won by Catriona Macmillan, who attended representing the Food Fairness Alliance. Happy cooking and food rescuing Catriona!
Help Community Engine help us
We’ve joined a new social media site – and they will donate $1 to Sydney City Farm for every new follower to our Community Engine page.
This is an online directory that makes it easy to connect with local small businesses and community organisations.
Join Community Engine for free and follow us
You could help us raise $1500 (if everyone on our e-mail list joins) which will enable us to run inspiring community events about urban sustainability in 2013.
Great ideas for City Farm Summer Garden
More than 26 dedicated community members gave up their Saturday on October 13 to help plan the educational programs, design elements, produce and community involvement opportunities for the upcoming City Farm Summer Garden at Sydney Park.
After a quick site visit to the proposed site for the Summer Garden, (between the children’s playground and chimney precinct), the participants headed back to the Sydney Park Pavilion and got to work.
Working in small groups led by City Farm Advisory Group members, including Sydney City Farm representative Nicola Cameron and representatives from the Powerhouse Museum and City of Sydney, the workshop drew out some excellent ideas for the Summer Garden.
Some key ideas included:
· Ensuring the design and the garden was welcoming, inclusive and accessible
· Calling volunteers “City Farmers”
· Everything being connected to the concept of a farm
· The Garden to act as a demonstration of the food cycle
· Providing flexible opportunities for volunteers
· Engaging with park users, local residents and groups
· Potential guest speakers on food security and meeting farmers, orchardists, bee keepers.
These ideas will directly inform the design and programs for the Summer Garden.
The Summer Garden will run from January through to March 2013. To find out more contact cityfarm@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au or keep an eye on this space to keep updated with events and activities.
First City Farm Public Event – help make it happen
Would you jump at the chance to help create a fabulous Spring event to celebrate what a City Farm can bring to Sydney? Then we want you!
We aim to hold a public event at Sydney Park in October – and we want those Sydney City Farmers who are interested to have the chance to help us in the initial planning right through to the organization of the event.
All you need to do is send us an email at sydneycityfarm@gmail.com by May 20th with the subject “Help with Spring Event”
Include your name and contact number so we can contact you to discuss your level of involvement.
Callan Park community consultation
View the Updated Callan Park Master Plan and hop on a free bus tour of the site on Saturday May 14th.
Complete the online survey at Callan Park your plan: Your Plan site
The bus tours will be facilitated by the Master Plan consultants. There will be three bus tours 10.30 am, 12.30 pm and 2.30pm
RSVP to: Annalene Lourenco annalenel@lmc.nsw.gov.au or Nelly Freitas nellyf@lmc.nsw.gov.au
City of Sydney wants to hear from you
There is still a week to let City of Sydney Council know how you feel about the proposals in the Feasability Study – the feedback period was extended until March 28th to allow more people to respond.
WE NEED YOU TO GIVE the CITY of SYDNEY FEEDBACK ABOUT THEIR PROPOSALS
Simply answer these four questions and send to
rgrayson@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
1. If a city farm were located at Sydney Park, St Peters, would you be interested in visiting the farm?
2. If a city farm were located at the Powerhouse Museum, would you be interested in visiting the farm?
3. Would you be interested in participating in farm activities? (eg. growing vegetables composting etc)
4. What other activities would you like to see included in the city farm? (e.g. education in sustainability, bee keeping, organic cafe etc)
5. Would you support representatives of the Sydney City Farm Group being on any initial management committee of the farm?
OR
read our summary of their study and write a short proposal in your own words
New City Farm Vice President Vanessa Pilla represented the Sydney City Farm group at a public information stall in Sydney Park on Saturday 12th March.
“The people who came were very supportive of the plan to have a City Farm in Sydney Park. We on the Committee really encourage all our City Farm supporters to let City of Sydney Council know that you want clear community representation on any interim management committee to plan the next steps.”
Read our submission here
Help spread the City Farm word at market stalls
As Sydney City Council selects a tender for a feasibility study on where to put the city farm, the project is getting real.
Now we need to build the city farm community so that when we get a site for the farm, we can work together and start building.
Over the next few months we’ve organised stalls at organic markets and festivals to spread the word about city farm.
Volunteers needed: Help spread the word at market stalls
It’s a perfect time to get even more involved and help out. We’re looking for people to volunteer a morning or afternoon to help man the City Farm stall.
If you would like to help, please call Liesje on 0425 200 355 or write us an email at sydneycityfarm@gmail.com
The dates for stalls are:
May
23 Primo Italiano Festival – Stanley Street, Leichaardt
June
5 SMH Growers Market, Pyrmont (TBC)
19 Everleigh Markets, Newtown
July
3 SMH Growers Market (TBC)
17 Everleigh Markets
August
7 SMH Growers Market (TBC)
21 Everleigh Markets
September
18 Everleigh Markets
It’s a surprisingly easy day and you meet lots of nice people. At the stall we will explain the concept and how people can get more involved. We’ll also be selling seedlings and t.shirts to make it more fun.
Let us know if you can help out on any of these days by emailing sydneycityfarm@gmail.com.
If you can’t make it, do the next best thing and mention the city farm concept to a friend. Join our facebook group, and invite some friends to join the discussion about what they want at the Sydney City Farm.
Thank you for your ongoing support,
Elsa and the City Farm team.
Tell us: How do you want your city farm?
Often when I meet people and tell them about the vision to create a City Farm and sustainable living centre in the heart of Sydney, they look into the distance and start imagining their farm: ‘It could have a bike repair workshop… and a Saturday growers market … and an and interweb of paths that wind through the orchard. There would be a solar house and an organic cafe…’ But everyone has a different idea of what the perfect city farm would be, and we want to record all these ideas to combine the best ones, and hit the ground running when we get a site.
So tell us: What does your City Farm look like? How does it run? What events do you have? And what do you want to grow?
Write your comments as a response to this blog and we will make sure they get considered in any proposal for the City Farm.