Helen Searle welcomed visitors to her South Dudley garden.
By Maddy Harford
Mary, Mary extraordinary
How does your garden grow?
With espaliered fruit trees, chooks and herbs
And tomato plants all in a row!
Mary's garden in San Remo was one of 15 gardens open to visitors last weekend in the inaugural Bass Coast Edible Gardens Festival.
Mary, Mary extraordinary
How does your garden grow?
With espaliered fruit trees, chooks and herbs
And tomato plants all in a row!
Mary's garden in San Remo was one of 15 gardens open to visitors last weekend in the inaugural Bass Coast Edible Gardens Festival.
| More than 400 people visited one or more gardens, well beyond our expectations. Several of the gardens closer to town hosted more than 200 visitors over the two days. An easy of COVID restrictions and perfect weather certainly helped. The festival was co-ordinated and curated by Bass Coast Adult Learning (BCAL) and hosted by local gardeners. The response has revealed a widespread interest in edible gardening and a need to gather and share information about how to improve production. Although the vast majority of visitors were locals (ie. from Bass Coast and surrounding shires), there was a significant contingent from a range of Melbourne suburbs, some of whom booked overnight stays, to allow a leisurely pace for exploring Bass Coast’s gardens. BCAL intends this to be the first of an annual event. In the meantime, we’ll be holding a series of gardening workshops, such as composting, pruning, wicking beds, food processing and bottling. BCAL chair Maddy Harford was one of the organisers of the Bass Coast Edible Gardens Festival. |  Jessica Harrison and Richard Kentwell welcomed visitors to the Harvest Centre community garden in Wonthaggi.  Ollie and Mike Wellings mix fruit and vegetables with natives and beautiful flowers in their Inverloch garden. |
Ryan Cassano, Katherine Beggs, Fiona Beggs and Phil Beggs had lots of questions from Diana about her Kongwak garden.