Australia: Kitchen Garden – Patchwork Urban Farm a flourishing community
Members subscribe to get a veggie box for a minimum of eight weeks and up to the whole season.
By Susan Parsons
The Cranberra Times
November 14 2022
Excerpt:
He said, “I’m not practically a grower, but I have given over a big chunk of my front yard to be part of the Patchwork Urban Farm, run my friends Karina Vennonen and Michael Fairlamb. They grow food across five landsharers and verge spaces and sell it through a cooperative Community Supported Agriculture scheme.”
Last week the collective of four workers, Karina and Michael, Kristina Whitley and Kim Carter, met at Tim’s inner north plot and he rode in from a meeting on his bike. The workers came together in June 2021, as they were passionate about growing food in an urban setting to build community resilience for climate change and each wanted to make farming a bigger part of their lives.
They use practises that minimise soil disturbance and try to increase the rich biodiversity that makes a healthy ecosystem. This is done through the use of interplanting, organic and agri-chemical free methods so, to assist with carrot germination, discarded hessian coffee sacks are used to cover the seeds. Crops are grown from seeds or seedlings that they raise from their own saved seed or from Canberra Seed Savers.
Karina explained they supply weekly vegie boxes to 40 members every week from November to May. Landsharers also receive a free weekly veggie box. The team had been out for two hours during the morning harvesting the first produce for this season from Campbell to Griffith. The broad beans were planted in April and Kristina likes to double pod them for use in a bright green dip.
