On Friday we celebrated Alex’s birthday which was lovely. His aunty Rose brought a cake along and we were all very happy to help him celebrate and we hope he had a super day on Saturday as well (his actual birthday!).

And … also on Friday we had a special delivery of two wicking beds from Nillumbik Nursery … the installation of which will be our project this coming Friday. If you are interested in how to set up a wicking bed at home come along and help out from 10am (we will throw in lunch at 12pm as a bonus) - I know Clare will be very happy to share her knowledge - and of course many hands make light work (especially when shovelling scoria I imagine). These wicking beds will be installed in the bluestone garden beds out on the corner triangle and will enable us to grow more food and herbs etc. We’ll be focusing on useful things that can be used by our community - either at our lunches or our neighbours and local friends.

Once again we’d like to thank the Climate Emergency Team at Yarra Council for funding these beds.

This week we celebrated autumn with a fancy lunch dish featuring fennel and beetroot.

We made a very yummy dish of roasted fennel and whiting, which was topped with a raw beetroot relish. We sprinkled some fennel fronds on top, with a wedge of lemon and some roasted potatoes (with rosemary and smoked paprika) on the side … it was a delicious and nutritious lunch. And simple to make. We had lots of time to chat and hear about what everyone had done in the holidays as we waited for it to cook!

If you’d like to join in our seasonal cooking adventures (and then eat the food that is made) please book in on Mondays for Garden to Plate, running from 11.30am-1pm here the in ACC kitchen.

This week we have a bunch of our programs starting up for the term including:

• Garden to Plate - Monday 11.30am

• AAA Bowls - Wednesday 10am

• Crunch (creative lunch) - Thursday 12.30pm

• Thursday Supper Club - Thursday 5pm

• AAA Art - Friday 1pm

We’re looking forward to seeing you! Keen to book in? You can do so here.

We also have our first Sustainability Workshop coming up this weekend - a reminder that our Sewing Machine Maintenance/Repair workshop starts at 10am (for everyone booked in) on Saturday. BYO machine.

Hope you enjoyed your democracy sausage on the weekend!

Cheers

Leanne

Last term Clare had a vision for updating the climbing frames (replacing the picture frames that are past their used by date) in our raised garden beds … and after a few hours of Facebook marketplace trawling and purchasing, and a can or two of spray paint, Corrado, Thomas and Clare did the glory work (after weeding and soil preparation by Meet and Clare earlier in the day) and installed two new ‘lovely ladies’ on Friday.

They also planted nasturtiums and beans and other beautiful flowering climbers - so we’re looking forward to the metal frames evolving into edible floral gowns over the next few months (we hope). Keep a watch as the plants grow!

Lovely to see everyone on Friday!

It was a glorious morning in the garden. We sat outside and enjoyed the autumn sunshine.

Enjoying the sunshine!

Then, we had ‘better than Subway’ (as Sarah said) focaccia for lunch - thinly sliced roast beef and roast capsicum with a yummy horseradish and chive cream cheese, along with swiss cheese and lettuce accompanied by 3 salads. And … for the vegos, a swap out to Yotam Ottolenghi’s portobello ‘steak’ mushrooms (recipe here. Such a winner - I use it all the time).

To top it all off Margaret from the CWA kept us up to speed with the latest cooking controversy (Nagi from Recipe Tin Eats v Brooke from Booki Bakehouse) and ‘their’ caramel slice. Yum! Thanks so much Margaret.

So great to be back with the crew.