We are thrilled to announce that we now have a judging panel for the GFR Wicking Bed Design Competition. We have stalwarts from UWS and every gardener's inspiration & superstar Costa Georgiadis on the panel!!
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Nominations invited for two committees - Education & Communications for Edible Streets program8/15/2014 About Edible Streets programEdible Streets program is an exciting initiative of Global Food Relief (GFR). The program seeks to transform urban disused spaces using good looking functional container beds growing veggies and herbs. Such edible landscapes would serve as urban hubs for community to gather, learn, connect and celebrate, while growing food and sharing the bounties. The vision of the Edible streets program is to dot the cities with edible streets acting as catalysts for building resilient, sharing and caring communities Nominations invited for Education CommitteeRemit of Education Committee is to meet 4-5 times a year (each members is expected to attend at least 2 meetings a year) to do the following:
If you wish to be part of the Education Committee and/or wish to nominate someone, please email to [email protected] briefly telling about yourself and/or the nominated person along with your contact details. Please forward the link to this page to your network. Nominations invited for Communications CommitteeRemit of Communications Committee is to meet 4-5 times a year (each members is expected to attend at least 2 meetings a year) to do the following:
If you wish to be part of the Communications Committee and/or wish to nominate someone, please email to [email protected] briefly telling about yourself and/or the nominated person along with your contact details. Please forward the link to this page to your network. What are wicking beds?Wicking beds are self watering garden beds and are critical to propagation of edible streets and suburbs. Check out the Permaculture Research Institute page on DIY Wicking Beds for more detail on how wicking beds work. About the Design CompetitionGlobal Food Relief (GFR) invites landscape architects and urban designers to design wicking beds that make use of recyclable waste materials and blends creative flair with clever functionality. The goal of the competition is to demonstrate that efficient watering of garden plants using wicking beds can be very effective, sustainable, contemporary, and attractive within public domain settings such as street verges & pocket parks. Criteria include: innovativeness, sustainability, creativeness, functionality, attractiveness, and effectiveness. Winners will be selected in 3 categories: 1) Best student designer (for Students) 2) Innovative Urban Designer Firm (for Landscape Architects & Urban Design Firms) 3) Most promising young urban designer (Designers below 30 years of age) To enter the competition, 1) Register your interest in submitting your design for the competition by 1st of September using this form 2) Email your design submissions by 13th Sept 2014 to [email protected] Wentworthville Police Station, GFR Edible Street Site # 1 Euralla Pocket Park, Westmead, GFR Edible Street Site # 2
John Irving Community Garden, RosehillI visited the John Irving Community Garden located in Rosehill within Parramatta council area to meet with Ronda Evenden , who is the co-ordinator of the garden employed by the Council. I chose to walk from Harris Park train station. As I walked from the station, making my way through the dull and barren suburban streets, I started imagining the spaces on the foot-ways and bus-stops that I passed, transformed through veggie and herb plantings. After a 20 minute walk, I arrived at a well established garden plot that was tucked away at the end of a quiet and unassuming suburban street. The garden has 27 plots allocated to community members who look after and care for their allocated plot. Some plots had just been planted while others were flourishing with vegetables and some others were waiting to flourish. Ronda was very welcoming as we sat down for a chat under a small open shed that was turned into a meeting area. Heard from Rhonda how back in 2008, she gathered interested local community members and put a request to the Council. It took nearly two years when the Council finally allocated the land for community gardening. The garden was officially opened in April 2010. Ronda said there was a long waiting list of community members who wish to do veggie gardening and could not be allocated the plots. She also told how Council seemed to have no more space to allocate. Therefore, when I shared about how our program aims to get in touch with disused land owned by land owners other local councils for growing veggies by the community, she was very encouraging of the idea. Apart from her best wishes, she offered two valuable pieces of advice- 1) To make sure that in our program, we do 'no dig' gardening which involves making raised beds by separating and on top of existing soil bed, to deflect the concerns about contaminated soil in high density suburbs. 2) To think about the process by which the gardens will receive consistent care and attention because when relying on volunteers, consistency of care becomes a critical factor. Armed with Rhonda's best wishes and advice, I left the garden grateful and encouraged. Connecting with Melbourne champions via Incredible Edible UKSnow-ball effect of connecting with Incredible Edible Todmorden was that one of the members of their network emailed me and informed me about Kate Dundas who has initiated a similar movement in Melbourne under the banner of 3000acres.org
Kate is a landscape architect who migrated to Australia from Scotland. She initiated the movement as she missed her connection with land and soil that she developed by working on a veggie patch that she was allocated during her life as University Student in Scotland. She shares a fascinating and inspiring story in a Ted Talk. She took inspiration from a similar movement in New York under the name of 596acres.org. I immediately emailed Kate and was excited to know that she was going to be in Sydney for a couple of days attending a conference. However, because of a busy schedule that she had at the conference, we were unable to meet up, in person. But I managed to connect with the facebook page of 3000acres. From their facebook page and the website, I gathered that the initiative goes about in a very systematic way as it is supported by Planisphere - Melbourne based landscape architect and urban planning consultancy that Kate Dundas is a member of. They have also managed to secure some grant funding from Victorian Health department. Leveraging on their professional expertise, Planisphere has created a map of various potential sites for veggie growing across Melbourne. They have been working systematically the process of identifying the land-owner and negotiating the arrangement whereby the site can be accessed by members of community for growing veggies on the site. The map clearly shows sites that have already been negotiated and are available for members of community to start using them for growing food. The facebook page also shows how they have been systematically building raised planter boxes using recycled materials for use on quite large in size to cover large disused sites. New York City's 596acres.org take a similar approach, and have detailed guidelines for members of community on how to contact and negotiate with land-owners, if they wish to convert potential site shown on their map to a community garden site. We are very excited to share that we have just received a note from Pam Warhurst (from UK) of Incredible Edible giving her YES for to be available for a live video hook up at our community meetings we are planning to kick off the Edible GFR Edible Streets and Suburbs in Sydney. This is what Pam wrote back in response to an email request we sent her: * start of Pam's note * Be delighted. Its an inspiring and brave idea. I love it. Keep me posted. X pam. Sent from my iPad * end of Pam's note * Community workshops are being planned to be convened in four different areas within Sydney metro, at -
1) Sydney CBD 2) Parramatta 3) Blacktown 4) Blue Mountains The objectives of the community workshop are: To help the local champions and relevant groups:
And to inspire the workshop participants, we are in the process of organising live video hook-ups with Pam Warhurst of Incredible Edible and Dr Vandana Shiva of Navadanya. 8th of March is celebrated as International Women's day. To coincide with this day, in the honour of woman of all women - Mother Earth - GFR launched the program to spread the revolution of edible streets and suburbs all around the globe.
Edible streets, suburbs and school yards are already being built around the world - in parts of Europe (UK, and France for example) and North America (California for example). Through the program, GFR seeks to equip the local champions around the world with moral support, guidance, resources and tools so that they are able to gather their respective community around this revolutionary and resilience building idea and tansform their streets and suburbs. |