A Radish by any other name....

Daikon, Moo, Mooli, Lobak. Call it what you wish. It was the surprise success of The Garden stall at Coledale Market. Most Westerners don't know what to make of it. But the rest of the world gets pretty excited about it. It's a white, mildly spicy, root vegetable which is a member of the Brassica family. Although the root is what most are after, the shoots are also edible (but prickly). It is also a lovely looking plant. Fellow Garden member Colin reckons it's your best bet for busting up hard/compacted soil. They are like tasty little crowbars that work for free. And easily grown. They self-seed with no problem in our region.

We diversified a little this time on the market stall. Arunda permasourced some really beautiful banksia/wattle blooms and we had some baby coffee plants for sale. Check out our posts earlier in the year about coffee bean processing (Jan/Feb). If you got a plant from us... then you saved a little fella from the roaster. Don't worry, mama will produce more next year.

Thanks to everybody who visited the stall. Selling out by 11am at a market that runs until 3pm was pretty encouraging! We had to call for back-up just to make it through the day (thanks Greg!).

So we leave you with a Daikon recipe we have tried and liked:

Daikon and Carrot Salad (from Japanese food and cooking by Emi Kazuko)

Grate 1 daikon and 1 carrot. Sprinkle with 1 tsp salt and mix. Drain after 30 minutes and squeeze out excess liquid.

Prepare dressing of 4 tbsp rice vinegar + 2 tbsp caster sugar. Stir until dissolved then pour over daikon and carrot. Garnish with roasted sesame seeds before serving.

This color combo, orange and white, is considered lucky by the Japanese. So daikon can change your luck too!

The Swap Goes On!

Winter is creeping in but we are pushing back! Still producing the veg and ready to swap.

The 2nd Waste Not! Fruit and Veg Swap will happen at the Garden @ North Wollongong PCYC on Saturday May 30th from 9-12. (the 5th rather than 4th Sat this month!!)

Port Kembla Mens Group will provide the fantastic coffee as before and we will have sweets again. So come and bring your surplus herbs, veg, fruit, seeds, plants to trade with like-minded growers, have a coffee, catch-up with old friends and make new connections.

Also come check out the Garden Stall, the weekend before the swap, at Coledale Market on Sunday the 24th

See you at the swap

Coledale Market sprouts a Garden

The funkiest local market just got funkier with the arrival of the Garden stall. Organic veg so fresh out of the ground that you could still smell the compost and seaweed fertiliser on the roots! And you want local?! How about Coledale honey, North Gong kale, Unanderra garlic, Port Kembla lemongrass. We don't measure food miles in miles or kms, we measure in neighborhoods.

Thanks to the generosity of participants in the Waste Not! fruit and veg swap the previous morning (check out the last post), we had an abundance of totally local produce grown with love that simply needed to find a new home. Virtually every last leaf flew off the market stall and the handful that didn't has been returned to the compost pile so we can grow a new crop. Complete the cycle! Compost to compost! Waste Not!



















Everybody who visited the stall was really complementary and people genuinely seemed pleased to have us. The fact that everything sold speaks for itself. If the market will have us, we will try to make it a regular event in conjunction with the Waste Not! swap.

So come check us out at Coledale Markets (http://wollongongmarkets.squarespace.com) every 4th Sunday of the month.

Swappers' delight

We couldn't have asked for more! The weather was glorious and the people were generous. Our friends from Port Kembla Men's Group provided seriously good cups of fair trade coffee for 30 or so swappers from in and around Wollongong. The produce was beautiful and varied: Vietnamese mint, lemongrass, mind-blowing chilis, three types of basil, pumpkins, curry leaf, lettuce, spinach, passion fruit, macadamia saplings and nuts, strawberry plants, mustard greens, chokos, beans, wax jambu, cucumbers, tamarillos, Jerusalem artichokes, rosemary, fennel, flat and curly leaf parsley, bulls horn capsicum, garlic chives, curly kale, eggplants, garlic, figs, limes...are you getting the picture!!!

A lot of healthy organic food got redistributed and people made new friends in the process. And in keeping with our motto 'Waste Not!' virtually every leaf and sprig that was donated to us was sold the following day at Coledale Market (pics and more info to come) which will allow us to keep the swap going.



Humongous thanks to everybody who participated and made it such a relaxed and positive morning.

Fellow swappers at Happy Earth(http://www.happyearth.com.au/) wrote a very kind report about the day as well. A podcast may also appear on Tim Denshire-Key's blog (http://upyourjumper.wordpress.com/). Tim visited us as a part of his Australian tour in which he is documenting the various ways communities are addressing sustainability and the challenges we face as a result of climate change and peak oil.

So spread the word. The Waste Not! swap will happen on the 4th Saturday of each month from 9-12 here at the Garden.

Swap your surplus veg at the Garden!

Waste Not! Fruit and Veg Swap is being launched at the Garden @ North Wollongong PCYC on Saturday April 25th.

Details are on the flier, but basically you bring some surplus herbs, fruit and/or veg from your garden i bring from mine and we swap! simple!

The equitability of the swapping will be determined between swappers. so if you are happy to receive a sprig of parsley in exchange for a pumpkin...cool!

Although we want as much veg as possible, don't be shy about bringing other stuff. Maybe people want flowers or dried beans or a branch of rosemary

Our only request is that you donate some of your bounty to the Garden for sale the following morning at Coledale Market (Wollongong Produce and Creative Traders Markets - About Us ). The little $$ we make at the market will be be re-invested in the costs of the swap/market and into ongoing projects at the Garden. As time goes on and we gather more members, we can all discuss whether that arrangement works or needs to be changed.

If that isn't enough...we hope to have some sweets and coffee on hand for the swap.

Before you come, take a look at your food garden through fresh eyes...all the stuff you are sick of is probably just the thing others are searching for.

See you at the swap!

working bee april

The bed grows !