Kate's Vegie Group Story from 2010

We are a group of women who meet together every week to grow food. We have a roster and each week we go to a different woman’s house and work in her garden on whatever she wants us to do.

“Playgroup for adults” Beth calls it, “or maybe Playgroup for food growing Mums.”  Whatever the name it is simple, it works and we love it and so do our kids and our gardens.  Now it maybe the lashings of cake we get every Friday when we arrive, or perhaps its just that all the mums are outside with all the kids, but “gardening”, “veggie club” or the more inspired name we dreamt up one week over a bed of weeds “Food for Thought”, is the highlight of everyone’s week.

Just like a seed, the idea for our gardening group swirled around in the ether for quite a while before landing in just the right place with three Mums chatting in the playground at Macedon Primary School.  It then had to wait until the conditions were just right, it had to push to the front of the conversation at least three times before finally life emerged.  Someone again said “we should just do it” and instead of “yeah we should” the reply was “OK lets.  What day suits you?”  “Who wants to go first?”

And so the seed unfurled into a seedling.  We set some rules.  She who receives the labour provides the energy (otherwise known as cake).  Actually in terms of rules that’s about it.  Oh yeah, it’s all about food –making a chook run, moving compost, planting seeds, pruning fruit trees, harvesting, laying beds and planting herbs - are all in , but the rose garden, while possibly admired, is out of bounds. As far as possible we work on organic principles, learning as we go.  

For quite a while there was just the three of us which was lovely although the pressure to be available every Friday did build up so we thought about going fortnightly.  But then we got a few more women and you could safely take a week off, knowing you’d be covered.  Then a few more joined and a few more until we hit a peek of 10. 

At this stage we wondered whether we should close the doors, it can be quite a task being organised to feed and work such a wonderful resource, but it has naturally levelled out and it works well.  We can still have weeks of three and it’s rarely nine.

Some of us have small children who now, after three years of going to veggie club, know each other and really look forward to gardening.  My four year old is so keen if I mention I am going to do some gardening he gets very excited.  If I really meant I was just going to work in our garden, he bursts into tears.

We have a wide variety of experience in the group, from women who have never grown vegetables and didn’t have a garden before joining, to those with established gardens and several years’ experience.  We are curious, and research to find the answers to our musings.  We then share our discoveries.
It is an ancient idea of collaborative effort to produce food, not original at all, and as we have discovered, the benefits are far greater than the time and effort we put in. 

The benefits are huge.  Even when it’s not your day, you go home inspired and often spend the rest of the day happily in your own garden.  You nearly always come home with some seedlings or produce or seeds, we learn from seeing what is happening in each other gardens.  We are always gob smacked at how much rain Christine has measured with her rain gauge- she lives about 3km from town and gets heaps more rain than we do.   We connect to our environment,  to our food and what we eat and to the land we live in, and at the same time we build relationships and laugh.

Our group has grown into a little community, a place of belonging.  We invite each other to our events, we celebrate the solstices together and our partners and older school children all know each other.   We were very pleased to be able to encourage and support another group of women in a neighbouring town to start a similar group. and talking recently to one of them, their group is also a little place of gardening connection and solace.

It is a truly exciting day when you cook up a storm, set a bunch of tasks and watch as work that would’ve taken you all weekend by yourself is done in a morning and it seems to be with very little effort.

As far as we can tell this type of idea is not actively promoted anywhere else.   We have found a lot of information about community gardens, but we live in a community that has ample land and the benefits of a garden at your back door is streets ahead of the one down the road you have to visit.  We bring the community to the home garden.

The idea has the capacity to be flexible for different groups.  A Sunday morning group for workers, seasonal groups that don’t work through the cold winter months  or an after school groups with older kids in tow, are all possible.  It could work fortnightly or monthly, again depending on the needs of the group.

We have had dreams for our group.  The model we want to promote is one that builds in an aspect of philanthropy.  We are still talking through various options, but the aim is to provide our labour and expertise to help others less able and privileged than us.  We envisage doing this about four times a year.  It may be to an elderly person, who has the passion and commitment to vegetable gardening, but no longer has the capacity.  It may be to someone with a disability who is isolated who would like to grow food but doesn’t know where to start.  It might be a school garden.  Because we value relationship and community we are moving towards the concept of adopting a garden (rather than a one off ‘makeover’) working with them for a few years or until they have their own capacity.  We will see how this aspect develops.  

We have talked about writing magazine articles to spread the word and laugh about how we could make a radio program for out local radio station about growing food.  We have also discussed having education sessions to learn from experts about preserving food

As is fitting in such a group, our development and direction is very organic and a result of the influence of the people in it.
 

Kirsty's patch - in the beginning

Beth, Kate (L) and I started the vegie group after having one of those never ending meaningful chats at school pick up, where all great ideas take place. We all had young boys and wanted to get them together and also fulfil our love of gardening and desire to grow more of our own food.  The roster was pretty easy to construct back then, we decided to meet once a week at each others houses after dropping bigger kids at school. It wasn't looking like a sure thing in the early days, we even dabbled with the idea of meeting every second week when we were slogging it out in the dead of a cold winter.  You felt terribly guilty if you couldn't make it as two people doesn't make for much of a working bee.  We kept at it though, gradually growing in size as we kept telling others what we were up to.

Today we really fill a room and easily bowl over a big garden's work in a couple of hours, leaving plenty of time to eat cake and chat.  After a Friday I feel nourished in so many ways.  From chatting with dear caring friends, from having my hands in the earth, from seeing the delighted smiles on our children's faces, from watching a garden flourishing - my own or others and of course from eating delicious cake.  I learn so much from those around me and love sharing the seeds, cuttings and harvest.  I love doing the garden tour, seeing the changes in each others gardens over time and getting new ideas for my own. Vegie group is really the highlight of my week, my little boy cried when he discovered that going to school meant no more vegie group but still delights in the social network we have created and celebrations we share such as a bonfire for winter solstice.   I hope we continue for years to come and that we inspire others to create their own groups.

Out the front I have one fallow patch, one green manure patch and one compost patch - waiting patiently for September and the summer crops to come.  The compost patch contains silverbeet, rocket, and celery that all came up in my compost.  I have also planted peas to grow up the old corn stalks where the beans once grew.  My one productive patch contains onions, spinach, a variety of peas and broccolli.  I am still getting the odd chilli and broad bean but the tomatoes have finally finished - I made 8 jars of green and red tomato relish.

Abi has found the broccolli out the back and enjoys munching on it.

 The green manure is a mix of peas, oats and vetch - Diggers Autumn Mix - even the crop planted in May is going well. I have found the digging in bit hard work as the dug in plants keep resprouting - hopefully it will all be worthwhile.

fruiting spurs on cherry (I think)

fruiting spurs on pear

Have lots of fruit pruning to do - those upward growing branches just keep on returning

While the suns shining and Abi's sleeping think I'll try and get these in, do like a big leek even though the perennial leeks are abundant - could keep talking vegies all day but not as fun as growing them.