Category: Environment and Food Security

Anne Rutherford

This year, a small group of 4-5 dedicated volunteers, with a little help from our friends, has worked in the veggie garden and delivered organic veggies on a weekly basis to Jarjum College in Redfern. Jarjum is a school for urban Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children who are not participating or coping in mainstream primary schools as a result of their domestic circumstances. They cook lunches for the kids and our veggies contribute to a healthy weekly community lunch for kids and parents. We’ve been providing silverbeet, lettuce, mountains of cherry tomatoes, leeks, bok choy, kale, heaps of fresh herbs and other delicious veggies when as available. Every week’s delivery is a little different and the college is very happy with our offering. 

We’re constantly learning more about what we can grow well in our location. We’ve tried germinating our own seed but have not had a lot of success. We’re also planning to invest in nets for a couple of the garden beds to help us get ahead of the voracious aphids and caterpillars. We started the year with funds from our previous sales of our much sought-after pesto but we haven’t had the resources this year to make pesto – it’s very labour-intensive.

In the coming year we will purchase seedlings, manure, netting, etc.to continue with our efforts.

By Anne Rutherford

2022 has been a year of change and refocus for the orto team. In the first half of the year we supplied weekly veggies to a new charity, Our Big Kitchen, that provides over 120,000 meals a people in need of food support, including asylum seekers, Indigenous people and the homeless. Over winter we let the garden lie fallow while our members made the annual pilgrimage to Italy and we took advantage of the break to rebuild our soil with green manure topped up with compost. We are reaping the benefit of our replenished soil with newly productive garden beds and in 2023 we will be going back to our previous charity, Jarjum College, a primary school for Indigenous kids in Redfern, that makes lunches for the kids. We have a new supplier of quality organic seedlings, QPS, who donated 50 seedlings to us when they learnt of the charity work we do. Thanks Jye!

In 2022, a number of long-term members of our group moved away or had other commitments, leaving a nucleus of four committed workers. This change led us to restructure the garden so that we can bring in more people from outside. We’ve divided the garden into four beds for a communal garden and the other five for the charity garden. This has proved a great success so far, as the communal garden has been providing a fabulous harvest for our willing workers and we have now welcomed Zorana, the treasurer of the association, as a new member.

We all sorely miss our dear friend Rosi, who has moved back to Italy to live close to her sister. Rosi has been a committed member of our group since the beginning of the garden and we wish her well. We also thank Jill, Mimi, Pia, Marisa and Ann for the years of work they put into building up our orto.

Vittoria Pasquini on behalf of the Coordinator Marisa Katis
Our beautiful organic vegetable garden blossomed in 2021 among many difficulties (Covid lockdown the main one), many thanks to Ann Game’s continuous, generous work and expertise, to Marisa Katis for general coordination, to Jill Romuld for account keeping and to our volunteers working in the garden individually or in pairs whenever restrictions allowed them and if they felt safe to go to the garden.
Throughout the year the garden looked fantastic! Full of veggies and flowers. Bees did their best to pollinate plants and we even had a blue tongue lizard taking naps in bed number 11! Our horse manure is top quality, our compost comes from our kitchen’s organic leftovers, the green manure helped heaps, so that almost none of our plants got sick. And our compost box, thanks to Murray Cox who built it, is the envy of local gardeners!
We produced: kale, silver beet, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, chili, radicchio, snow peas, green beans, and a variety of different herbs.
Due to protracted lockdowns our team unfortunately wasn’t able to gather and make our delicious pesto like we have done for many years, hopefully we will do it this year!
We were very happy to donate our veggies to people in need, especially during this very difficult time. In particular our produce went to:
(In the first months of the year):
– Redfern Community Centre (Indigenous Drop In Centre)
– Jarjum College (College for Indigenous young students)
(In the following months):
– The Safe House (female refugees or asylum seekers fleeing from modern slavery)
– Our Big Kitchen (non-profit organization preparing and distributing meals across Sydney to people in need including refugees, asylum seekers and Indigenous people).
Although we couldn’t attend to the garden as a group as usual, we still had many conversations via WhatsApp, emails, texts and telephone calls, reporting, advising, seeking advice etc. – all in all trying to envisage the best possible solutions to help the garden do well during this difficult time.
Ten years ago, we started; Valerio had wanted to build an organic vegetable garden and our community of good intents did it in his memory.
Through many ups and downs, a turnover of people, many discussions on how to do it better, the garden is still alive and well and we know that we are doing good for people who are in need.
The result is positive, and we are looking forward to having great crops in 2022!

During the pandemic volunteers were encouraged to do planting and routine maintenance work in pairs
or small groups.
At the beginning of the year we redesigned the garden to allow for plant rotation and including bee –
attracting plants.
Initially, despite the pandemic, we were able to deliver our vegetables weekly to the Redfern
Community Centre and Jarjum College when open. Unfortunately, the recent lockdown prevented us
from continuing with the deliveries. Deliveries to the Redfern Centre have now ceased and instead we
deliver to The Salvation Army refuge for refugees who are victims of slavery.
The proceeds of pesto sales enabled a slow-cooking pot to be purchased for Jarjum College to prepare
hot lunches for the youth.

By MarielIa Totaro-Genevois

In 2021 the VDSA Lunch Project Group has marked its ninth year of existence, and

notwithstanding the disruption and distress provoked by Covid 19 there is still cause for

celebrating its work and achievements.

Since its foundation the VDSA lunch group has prepared, transported and served lunches to clients of the Asylum Seekers Centre despite the ever-increasing need. This has been possible thanks to the flexible and generous approach adopted by our team.

So, when with COVID 19 we had to face new and volatile circumstances, our response once again was accommodating and constructive:

Firstly, on three occasions the scheduled groups instead of the traditional monthly lunches, have delivered generous amounts of food and toiletries to the Asylum Seeker Centre for distribution to refugees and asylum seekers.

Secondly, in March, April and May before lockdown we provided lunches for refugees and asylum seeker clients of the Asylum Seekers Centre.

Meanwhile a warm, heartfelt thank you to all member of the VDSA Lunch Group for their unfailing contribution to the cause of our association.

This year we have been growing a range of vegetables. We make regular donations of vegetables to refugees and asylum seekers. We also deliver weekly two or more large bags of vegetables to The Redfern Community Centre. This centre is frequented predominantly by indigenous locals. Some vegetables are used in the preparation of meals on Tuesdays and some are given to attendees to take home.

The Redfern Community Centre manager recently sent the association a letter of thanks. She stated that they feed between thirty and seventy people at each sitting and the vegetables from our garden are very much appreciated.

We also deliver veggies to Redfern Jarjum College, which supports and motivates Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students facing disadvantages. Teachers and students are very happy to be able to eat organic fresh vegetables for lunch weekly and intend to visit our vegetable garden in Bronte soon.

This year we have planted warrigal greens which are enjoyed by the indigenous community and intend to plant other native vegetables and herbs.

The VDSA vegetable garden team recently started donating vegetables to St.Canice’s, Elizabeth Bay, which has a long history of looking after the needy, including many refugees. We deliver directly to the person who organises and cooks lunches on the 3rd and 4th Mondays of the month and she is most grateful for our fresh, organic produce. As she is very dedicated to charitable work and a competent cook, we are sure nothing is wasted!

We also started another donation of vegetable to the Redfern Community Centre. The Centre offers a variety of community support programs such as preschool, after school and vacation care, as well as aboriginal art and music, to the local community members including aboriginal children and youth. Every Tuesday they cook lunch and we deliver on Monday. They are very happy and thankful for our organic fresh veggies.

During 2017 our group continued to grow organic vegetables. These were given to refugees and asylum seekers living in the community and experiencing poverty and misfortune. Fresh vegetables are also delivered weekly to two emergency centres which house some indigenous women and refugees.

Some volunteers have prepared pesto and salsa verde made from garden produce. These have been sold to raise funds for the Association.

 

On Tuesday 15, November Diego Bonetto took our Volunteers and Friends of the VDS Association on a Wild Food Workshop tour of the Bronte gully.

Diego is an Italian artist, naturalist and cultural worker. He regularly presents at conferences and symposiums on the ecological and cultural value of botanical species.

On this particular Tuesday morning he showed us the variety of edible plants that grow freely around our vegetable garden, all of which we had considered weeds and until then tried to clear out from our plots. Then we went into the gully and were shown a variety of plants that are edible or/and have medicinal applications.

 

We are grateful to Diego Bonetto for sharing his knowledge with us. We learned a great deal and felt inspired by his words.

 

-Marisa Minelle-Katis, Bronte Garden Coordinator

2015 Annual Report

 This year

1. Raised wooden boxes were constructed around our vegetable beds.  This project was funded by donations and built by a member of the Association.
2. A watering system was installed.

A friend of the Association who is a member of Rotary e-club applied to Rotary for a donation of $600.00 to enable the Association to install a new watering system for the vegetable garden. This was approved.

Our organic vegetable garden is totally run by a number of members of the association who meet regularly in the garden plot.

We are growing a variety of seasonal produce to maximise variety in the food basket we donate weekly to 3 organisations

• WAGEC (Women and Girls Emergency Centre in Potts Point), which is a support service for women with or without children who are at risk or experiencing homelessness in the Inner City of Sydney.  This includes indigenous women.
• Young Parents Support Organisation run by the Red Cross in Randwick.  This also includes indigenous people.
• St Canices’ Kitchen for homeless people and refugees/asylum seekers in Kings Cross

We also contribute produce to the members of our association who organize monthly lunches for refugees/asylum seekers at the Asylum Seekers Centre in Newtown.

The garden continues to be totally organic, as we believe strongly in the benefits of eating fresh organic food.