Neighbourhood Farm

We enjoyed another weekend with a great crew completing there Master Composter Course with . The day began with a farm tour then a deep dive into composting with Kris talking about the many composting methods used on the farm. We also had a visit from Brian “The Worm Man” talking all things worms and soldier flies. Such a fun day with enthusiastic people ready to start their own composting journey.

Terra Madre! What a caldron of cultures ideas and inspiration. With all the success of small scale slow food producers at the event there was a serious conversation about the state of our food system as a whole.

The fight to keep local food at the forefront defending the rights and traditions of community’s, local economies and protecting biodiversity on our planet was central to many discussions during the event.

One workshop ‘The future we want: young people share best practice in the lowlands’a quote that stuck with me was ‘biodiversity is the most important heritage we have’

Many of the discussions focussed on the importance of Agroecology a concept that utilises a holistic and integrated approach that applies ecological and social concepts to the design and management of sustainable agriculture and food systems.

The work that is being done from youth to elders, communities to countries, coming together for a future to replenish, restore and regenerate our food systems was an overwhelmingly positive force to witness.

Feeling reenergised for the work we do on our farm and an appreciation for all the people that make it possible. Great to meet the Australian cohort who are all working on a better food system. Again a big thank you for the opportunity.

Excited to share that Kris’s Nourish Compost is now here! He has been working tirelessly on creating the highest quality compost / soil inoculant that works to restore biodiversity to your soil.

If you have ever purchased our veggies you’ll know that soil health is a huge focus for us. Kris has been on the farm creating compost from local sources since 2021. Nourish compost is a big part of our soil health management from inoculation on our seedlings to amending our beds. We like it so much that Kris has to lock the compost bays so we don’t steal it all!

He is offering 10% off for a limited time to friends of the farm using discount code ‘FARM10’ at checkout on his website.

If you want to learn more check out his Instagram or visit www.nourishcompost.com.au (link in bio)

Thanks Kris for all your help around the farm!

Another first for the farm this week is celery!

It’s something we’ve wanted to try out since the beginning. The time from seed to harvest was always a barrier for growing it on the farm. With the new CSA box system it’s allowed for the space and extra time to trail it out. We’re happy with the results so far!

Time to dust off those boots, get out of the city and join us out at the on 31st August

This event is to celebrate the 10 years Juanita and Randall have been farming and to come together and enjoy what they have accomplished.

If you’ve ever purchased eggs from our stall this is the opportunity to see the farm and the amazing work Randall and Juanita put into there farming practices.

There is a heap of talks, sausage making classes, soil workshops and a celebratory bonfire and dinner to finish it off!

These two have been a big part of our farming journey. They not only have supplied us with weekly eggs for our customers but have been big supporters of our farm and the local food movement.

See you there!

Check out the link below for tickets!

https://events.humanitix.com/4goods-field-day

Bandicoot bandits raiding the carrot beds 🥕

The good news is we have bandicoots thriving just 10kms from the city. The difficulty is through the dry winter we’ve had they have acquired a taste for our baby carrots.

There’s been many a late night chasing them away, putting up spotlights and netting beds without much success. Hopefully we get a change in weather so they focus on some of their other dietary delights.

If you’re looking to learn new insights on gut health join us this Saturday on the farm with Melissa Salmon for her new Gut Health Workshop!

We will take an in-depth look at veggies growing on the farm and how to incorporate them into wholesome meals for gut health. After a walk around the farm there’ll be a fermentation demonstration followed by a healthy lunch made directly from the farm.

You can book tickets from the link below!

https://www.neighbourhoodfarm.com.au/workshops

Hope to see you there!

We will have on 17th of August running a new workshop ‘NURTURING URBAN HABITATS: BRINGING BACK THE BUSH.’

This will be a day filled with skills to learn how to integrate, create & care for landscapes that support life.

Come along for a fun-filled day as Bushtekniq shares skills in how to bring the bush back into your backyard, learn lovely local plants and the wonders of weedy guys!

See link.

https://www.neighbourhoodfarm.com.au/workshops

This cool cat is heading south on a long journey aiming for Tassie. If you’re looking for a helping hand Micah is not bad on the tools and has plenty of experience slinging veg!

All he needs is some food and a place to park his van. He would love to come and help while he’s traveling south over the next 6 months. You can reach him on insta 🚐 🥕 🧑🏼‍🌾

This is the first Cauliflower we have grown on the farm!

There’s a few reasons this has become possible. Our system has changed from a market where we would grow as much as possible to fill our stall with weekly produce. To now running a small CSA box system where we plant and produce what we need each week to fulfill our CSA.

This has allowed us to trial vegetables we would never have thought to grow due to the risk of failure. Now we have more time to grow less numbers of vegetables with more varieties for our customers.

We are still learning a great deal and have to thank for their consultation and support. Here’s to growing many new veggies at the farm in the future!

We have our Winter Farm tour coming up this Saturday! If you’re looking to get outdoors and see what we have growing at the farm come along and enjoy walk around the patch. We’ll have Coffee, Tea and a few treats to get you through the day. We kick things off at 10am. Hope to see you there!!

Link for tickets: https://www.neighbourhoodfarm.com.au/workshops/event-one-rbj35

We’ve been lucky enough to be sponsored by to participate in the International gathering Terra Mardre festival of slow food hosted in city of Turin Italy 🇮🇹

The theme of the event this year “Restoring our relationship with nature”
Something that we are really passionate about here at Neighbourhood Farm. Matt has been asked to participate in the conversation and present the learnings of running a small scale urban farm deeply connected with the community. He hopes to inspire people to connect with their food, farmer and to live more sustainably through tangible measures that everyday people can incorporate into their daily living.

Neighbourhood Farm would not exist today without continued support of our community who have helped us through challenging times such as the floods of 2022.

We want to thank for their support and can’t wait to share all the things learnt from the event.

Hey fellow small scale farmers! We just completed the Small Farms Count National Survey run by the crew .farmers.connect It’s anonymous and easy to do on your phone in about 10mins!

The information will really help gain insight into our challenges and opportunities as a whole and can give us a stronger voice with the issues we all face.
Check out the link below

https://www.smallfarmscount.com

We are starting our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box this week with a small trial of people to make sure we have set ourselves and the farm up correctly for the season ahead.

This is a big change in operation for us at Neighbourhood Farm and plenty of work has gone in over the summer.

If you are interested in our CSA you can check out our website (https://www.neighbourhoodfarm.com.au/memberships) to join our waitlist as we ramp up over the season. Just a note veggies may not be available to everyone as we will be supplying approximately 50 CSA boxes this year. Over time we are looking to expand and provide more boxes to our community.

We have also started a membership option for people who would like to help us out in the farm and join us at the end of year farm lunch. There are a few extra perks for members you can check out on our CSA/membership page.

Thank you all for your support to help us keep growing!

Matt and the team :)

Join us for our new workshops for the year starting with backyard herbalism with natrupath . Melissa will be guiding participants and showcasing medicinal uses of common weeds and plants around the farm. This is one of the most requested workshops we have on offer so get in quick!

You can also book into our winter farm tour where we’ll take a close look at our farming operation and all the veggies we grow over the winter months.

Both workshops have refreshments and lunch prepared using produce directly from the farm!

Tickets are available on our website (see link below).

https://www.neighbourhoodfarm.com.au/workshops

We hope to see you there!

Photo by:

We had students from visit the farm today for their Stronger Women Program. The program has been created to help new Australians connect with the community and provide skills for work into the future. We went through all the processes of our farm operation and were taught a few new skills ourselves in different farming methods and uses for plants we grow around the farm. Looking forward to everyone visiting the farm again soon!

Hey everyone, we have had a few people ringing with concerns Neighbourhood Farm is selling. The block we run our farm on is not selling and we are continuing with our box system in March this year.

The farm we ran our shop from is selling. Although we would love to purchase this land to expand our farming operations this is out of our reach. We would love for a fellow farmer to invest in the land and continue to grow more veggies for our local community.

If you know people who have local food interests that have capacity to buy Blackheath Farm please send them the info.

Thank you!
Matt.

Neighbourhood Farm is coming back in 2024!

Over the break we have been working through a number of possibilities to continue farming. We have landed on the well known model of Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) where the farm directly provides produce to the consumer through a subscription model. In our case as a weekly veggie box.

Members will be provided with freshly picked vegetables available for pick up directly from the farm.

We believe this will allow for the best opportunity to continue to grow the highest quality produce and allow our customers to connect directly with the farm throughout the year.

We’ll have more info in the coming weeks and want to thank everyone for the support you have shown.

We’re looking forward to the year ahead!

From Matt and the Neighbourhood team