Sunday 24 August 2008

KITCHEN GARDEN DAY IN ADELAIDE

  image imageIt is the day of the year when kitchen gardeners all over the world gather in local groups to celebrate growing their own food. The Hills and Plains Seedsavers group and friends gathered at Deb and Quentin's idyllic organic farm in the Adelaide hills for a shared lunch of seasonal food cooked by each of us from food grown in our gardens or nearby. Naturally, the ingredients used were winter things, like spinach and other greens, broccoli, celery, citrus etc plus preserves from last summer but the range of dishes was amazing. First, though, was a tour of the place and Deb is always so generous with her time and knowledge. At every turn there is something beautiful like Deb's woven fences or this glass bird bath....and Amelia's hair!

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After the walk and the lunch, in the sun which shone with warmth for the first time in weeks, we got down to the serious business of the newest Olympic KG Day sport..... Squash-Tossing! Last summer, I thought "These beautiful, hard old summer squash must be good for something..." and I couldn't bear to feed them to the chooks and today they found their use! Along with some wind fall lemons they became the centre of a fierce competition between 3 teams, to throw the most items into the wooden box.....

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You can see the intense concentration on the Veggie Gnome's face, below, and then the cheers from the rest of the team....but the men at right could see their lead slipping away.....

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....so Quentin and Olly consulted a book of rules, below left.... but the team in red were clearly superior and managed to double the score of the other 2 teams who played off for silver and bronze in cold, late-afternoon conditions.

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It was a lovely day and what was especially nice for me personally was that gathered there today were not only quite a few of the original members of our seedsavers group but 7 new people, who had independently joined over the last few months, as a result of finding us on this blog. So, kitchen gardening is once again becoming mainstream here and it is great to see so many young faces now becoming a part of our group. I feel that at last people are taking responsibility for their impact on the earth, they are learning how to grow food for themselves, how to cook it and how to preserve it and as a consequence, are helping to also preserve all that is vitally important for a healthy future for themselves and the earth we share.

Thanks, Roger D for starting Kitchen Gardeners International and for nominating one day annually to be the day people all over the world celebrate growing at least some of their food by gathering to share their produce and share their time and share their love of a simpler, richer life.

There are more photos in our KG Day album photos link.

For a list of other blogs of people celebrating KG Day as day revolves around the world go to KGI Kitchen Garden Day.

9 comments:

Maggie said...

Thanks again Deb, Quentin and Kate. It was a great day and not a tomato in sight.
We have added some of our photos which show Deb's farm tour and her Moon Planting theme.
We placed the food we had prepared near an element sign which in turn relates to one of 4 plant parts eg fire - fruit, seed
air - flower
water - leaf
earth - root
We are just coming out of winter so daikon, nettles, chards, coriander, mustard greens, lettuce, mint, parsnips, carrots, broccoli and citrus are our staples.
Not a tomato, cucumber, zucchini or eggplant in sight!
Have a wonderful Kitchen Garden Day.
What a wonderful thing to be able to share our gardening experiences with each other.

Pattie Baker said...

Wow--LOVED the photos, Kate! Kitchen garden Day is just starting here. We're experiencing freaky residedual weather from Hurricane Fay (which just beat up Florida agian and again and again) so not sure I'll do anything more than fling the garden gate open for awhile andplants some more fall seeds.

Anonymous said...

Thanks Kate for your enthusiasm in keeping this creative blog alive and sharing the seedsavers with those who may stumble across it or search it out with a plan in mind.

A plan... the plan was a very successful one I would like to say.
Kitchen Garden Day was a hoot!
It was an eye opener of a day for me and wonderful to finally meet so many caring, earth and season connected individuals.

The farm made me feel like there was hope for my little patch of dirt to become fruitful and bountiful ... in time. I am envious of Deb & Quentins life style and all that water! What a wonderful location. Such happy animals too... they do have it good.
I hope to interest Tj's school in a field trip to the farm and perhaps from that an interest will grow in creating a healthy, happy, knowledgable activity for the whole school to benefit from.

Thanks to Deb & Quentin for welcoming us all and for such a fun Kitchen Garden Day.

Carolyn said...

I just stopped by for a visit. I wanted to say Hi and Nice Blog!

Carolyn

Lucky-1 said...

Bugger, we missed out on coming. Our son James was in hospital.:(

Looks like it was a FAB TAB of a day too:)

Maggie said...

Carolyn , lovely to see your family garden plots and produce.
I notice you make kefir, mad gnome gave me some on Sunday, you could check out their blog from our links.
Thanks for visiting.
Sorry you could not make it lucky maybe some other time. Hope all is okay with your son now.
Tina, lovely to meet you and your daughter, I think she enjoyed the chuck the old fruit in the basket game.
See you at our next gathering.

Kate said...

Maggie! It was the inaugural Squash-Tossing competition, not just 'old fruit'...although there were some lemons too....and the box was regulation size, not just some basket!! Really, some people just don't appreciate the things I do!!!

Maggie said...

Oh my, just shows I should pay more attention but I was eating homemade cookies, and your lemon cake and checking out Ting's stinging nettle sour dough bread, her pickled daikon and daikon top dal. And then there was veggie gnome and Deb's preserves.
Your green pie was good!

Ting said...

Thanks Kate, Deb, and Quentin.
Also thanks to all those foods and people who growed and prepared them.
It was a great day.

Viva las kitchen gardeners!