While activity on the SAGE website has been quiet for a considerable time now (but we’re planning to change that), rest assured SAGE itself has been feverishly working on many different projects. Most significant is the birth of the SAGE Farmers Market now held every Tuesday from 3pm at Riverside Park, Moruya.

This is a vitally important development in supporting our local growers and bolstering our local food economy. The community has responded with enthusiasm and we already have 20-25 stall holders every week, selling everything from fresh veggies, honey, eggs, mushrooms, oysters as well as value-add products such as pickles & chutneys, dips, bread & pastries and more.

After a 2 month trial, the market has been given the official nod for a permanent residency along the banks of the Moruya River on Tuesday afternoons. The unusual timeslot has proven a bonus for local growers and customers alike. It provides an added opportunity to sell more produce for growers and parents are relishing the chance to get fresh local produce mid-week after school with their kids. The market stays open long enough for workers in town to get their fresh food after knock-off as well.

On Tuesday the 16th of April, the SAGE Farmers Market Committee is throwing a launch party to celebrate its permanent status. There’ll be live music, family games, great prizes and a free organic sausage sizzle and SAGE barbequed corn on the cob!

Join us to celebrate from 3pm Tuesday 16th April at Riverside Park, Moruya.

Attendance
Stuart Scobie, John Bourne, Janet Kohler-Bond, Fraser Bayley, Sandra Makdessi, Penny Cook, Geoff Scott, Stuart Whitelaw, Adrian Cram, Wendy Jones.

2. Administration
Minutes — minutes of the previous meeting were accepted by John Bourne and seconded by Adrian Cram.

Financial report — Geoff advised he has established the investment account with ING so we can earn more interest.

3. Matters Arising
Stuart W. advised that he and Stuart S had a meeting with Head of Planning and planning staff regarding small structures on the flood plain. The way forward seems to be to design and engineer a prototype shed for growers that would meet all SEPP requirements along with the required management/ risk analysis plans.
If this could be achieved it would allow easier approvals for new growers and may be applicable to other areas of the state.

4. Recipe book
Are now on sale at ESD, Rustic Pantry, Moruya Books and Fraser’s market stall. They will also be sold at the festival and at SAGE.

5. Mowing roster
The mower has been serviced and belt replaced. John has enough people on the roster now, but the rain is holding up training. The new whipper snipper has been purchased.

6. Rabbits
Chris Gilbert has been appointed as a contract shooter for the shire. SAGE is included on the list of places he will patrol for rabbits. He has shot at least 22 so far on the SAGE block.

7. Harvest festival/garden blitz
Harvest festival
There will be a SAGE stall at the festival open between 9am and 3pm. Sandra will organise a staffing roster. We will be allocated a 4.5x3m tent. We will enrol members, sell recipe books, have a slide show, display produce and unusual hand tools, display and sell paintings and prints from the Food and Art guide.

Garden blitz
A plan showing the garden area divided into 7 separate zones was distributed. After discussion the Team leaders for the day are:
Area 1- John
Area 2- Wendy
Area 3- Walter
Area 4- Stu S
Area 5- Adrian plus one other
Area 6- Karen
Area 7- Stuart W.
Adrian will be site manager.

We will require additional tools on the Blitz day: Wheelbarrows, shovels, spades, pitchforks for mulch, garden forks. Include in email to members.

There are a number of pre blitz tasks that need to be done next Sunday 11th March
1. Remove grass in the gravel under the roof (mattocks, rakes)
2. Dig trenches for hard edges for garden beds
3. Wheelbarrow soil from stockpile to garden beds
4. Locate new wicking bed adjacent to sink and move stockpile of gravel to fill
5. Rake existing path of weeds
6. Pick up any sharp objects (roofing off cuts) and rubbish for recycling.
7. Weather permitting have a bonfire to clean up surplus wood.
8. Depending on soil condition, cultivate some beds for planting
9. Divide lemongrass for replanting

THE BIG DAY
18 March Activities/Jobs

8. Any other business
Walter has donated $100 from the very successful bee workshop.

Stuart W to contact Riverfeast food organisers and Cameron Williams regarding use of corn and dried beans for both Riverfeast and Blitz.

Photographer for both video and stills needed for both days. Suggest John Hicks and Lou Glover be approached.

Meeting closed at 7.00 pm.

Restacking the compost

The compost heaps we made before Christmas were turned and combined into one heap with the addition of several bags of pigeon poo! The aroma was heady to say the least.

Tidying the orchard

The orchard trees were weeded and mulched, and the mesh fence (which was hoped would keep rabbits out of the commercial beds) was removed.

The wood from our old wattle trees is now well seasoned and was restacked under cover, ready for use in the tandoor.

Podding beans

We harvested some of the borlotti and red kidney beans which were then podded for drying. The amount of great storable protein that just one row yields is amazing. It is no wonder they are such a staple inItaly.

The corn crop is still producing like mad and it looks like we have a hundred or so butternut pumpkins that will be ready in a few weeks time for the South East Harvest.

Tidying up the wicking beds

The wicking beds were weeded and the raised beds cleared for their next rotation. We were given another wonderful wicking bed from Joe Hooper at Congo who is manufacturing them for sale. It is a narrower unit than our others and is ideal for a kitchen greens or herb plot.

The worm baths were checked and they were given a special treat of some horse manure. The liquid from the worm farms is our main fertiliser.

It was great to see several new members as well as visitors to SAGE. As always the kids all had a ball (as well as being occasionally helpful).

As part of the final project evaluation, Sustaining our Towns is asking people involved with the project to tell them about changes resulting from the project’s activities that they feel are significant.

As a participant in the Sustaining our Towns project which ends on 31 March 2012, they are asking you to provide them with feedback.

The following has been sent from Kerryn Hopkins, Project Officer and Monitoring and Evaluation for Sustaining Our Towns. Please feel free to forward any questions or comments to Kerryn on her email.

Seeking stories of “significant change”

We are looking for brief stories exploring how the Sustaining our Towns project has contributed to changes in your lifestyle, business or community, including at the regional level. These stories will help us understand the impact of the project and learn from the best of what has been achieved.

Barriers to change

We’d also like to hear about any barriers that you feel have impeded change occurring. As with the stories of significant change, these insights will help us understand the impact of this project, as well as provide valuable information to inform the design of future projects.

How to submit a “significant change” story

We need stories to be brief (no longer than a page) and written in a narrative style using a personal, informal tone. Because the stories are about change, they need to describe the situation before the change, what then happened, and the situation after the change occurred. Your story may include your name, or may be written in a non-identifiable manner. For a story guide template, please contact Kerryn.

As well as stories being posted or emailed to us, they can be collected via a phone interview with the Sustaining our Towns project evaluation officer Kerryn Hopkins on 0429 788 508. Please call Kerryn to discuss your story contribution either way.

Deadline for story contributions is Tuesday 31 January 2012.

What will happen to your story if you submit one?

Collected “significant change” stories will be reviewed at a community evaluation session during February 2012. Meeting participants will read and discuss the stories, then agree on which ones are most significant, and why. The discussion about this is captured and analysed, and will also be communicated in our project evaluation report.

Stories selected to represent the most significant change, or insights into barriers to change, will be included in the final project evaluation report. If your contribution is selected, we will contact you to seek permission for your story to be published, either including your name, or in a non-identifiable manner. More details of the Sustaining our Towns privacy policies can be accessed at on their website.

Community evaluation sessions

You’re also welcome to attend one of the “significant change” community evaluation sessions where stories contributed will be reviewed, and the story representing the “most significant change” will be selected by meeting participants. Or you may be interested in just attending one of these meetings rather than submitting a story of change yourself.

Meeting dates are:
1. Narooma: Tuesday 14 February 2012, 2-5pm
2. Queanbeyan: Tuesday 21 February 2012, 2-5pm.

Venues for both meetings will be advised in early 2012. The evaluation meetings will follow a meeting of the South East Food Project, an initiative of Sustaining Our Towns, held earlier in the day (10am-1pm) and at the same venue. This will enable those involved in the South East Food meeting to participate in the afternoon evaluation session should they so wish. Contact Kerryn Hopkins to express interest in attending the evaluation sessions, or to find out more.

More about the evaluation method being used

The Sustaining our Towns project has run for 2.5 years across the south eastern NSW region. It has aimed to reduce the “ecological footprint” of homes, businesses and communities across the region. We are currently undertaking an evaluation of the project to capture what it has achieved — or not — over this time. We’re using an approach known as the Most Significant Change technique as part of this project evaluation process. This involves project participants identifying the types of change that have occurred as a result of participating in the project, and analysing this information in relation to the overall aims of the project. You can find out more about the Most Significant Change evaluation technique at this website.

Thanks again for your involvement with Sustaining Our Towns. Please take this opportunity to become involved in the final evaluation of the project. And please feel free to pass on this to others you know who may have been involved in the
project in some way.

One of the three goals in the SAGE Produce Distribution Policy states that “excess produce (should be made) available free to those in need in our community”.

This process had a happy beginning before Christmas, when vegetables were provided to the Moruya Women and Childrens’ Service refuge. The refuge had a full house in December. Residents are expected to provide their own food, but have very little money. The refuge coordinators said that fresh vegetables and fruit are extremely good for people who are under a lot of stress. So far the refuge has been supplied with silverbeet, green beans, rocket, zucchini, carrots, cucumbers, fruit and eggs on a regular basis, twice or three times a week. The residents and staff are very pleased with these contributions.

Any SAGE members who would like to contribute excess produce from their home gardens should contact Caroline Power (phone 4474 0498) or email the SAGE Secretary.

This year the Eurobodalla District Show will be on Friday the 20th and Saturday the 21st of January at the Moruya Show Ground.

For the first time SAGE is going to have a booth at the show. Our stall will be called “Love food, hate waste”. We have been able to borrow the display from Sustaining our Towns. We will have demonstrations of composting and worm farming, and we hope to be able to sell the cookbook if it is ready in time. We need volunteers to mind the stall during the show, so if you can help out please contact Caroline.

There is also an opportunity for members to become stewards for the exhibitions in the pavilion. There is a chief steward for each exhibit category. Volunteer stewards would help them set up the exhibits, take care of them during the show, and dismantle them afterwards. If you are interested please contact Caroline.

Have you thought about exhibiting your own fruit and vegetables this year? Fraser says, “It’s a bit of fun”. Fraser and Kirsti enter every year and every year they have a little comp going with Alison Walsh as to who can win the most prizes. This is a little side competition that it would be fun to promote amongst a few like-minded people who don’t mind a bit of fun and have a good backyard garden.

The most coveted award is the best vegetable collection of eight varieties. It’s not so easy to pull off but Fraser is confident this year of taking out that prize. Go on I know you want to have a crack at the title too!!! And this year the most successful tomato grower wins a $100 voucher at the Air Raid. This is definitely a worthy target. (“Come oooonnnnn”, Lleyton Hewitt style as called by Fraser).

Again, Caroline can give you more information about who to contact and what you have to do. We hope to see lots of SAGE members at the show this year.

It’s time to reap the rewards!

Planting

Now we are in the full swing of summer, you should be reaping the rewards of your gardening by enjoying some really good food.

This time of the year you should keep planting your salad greens.

By the end of this month you’ll want to be planting parsnips, carrots, cabbages and brussels for your late autumn/winter eating. Spuds could go in now for a good spud store for winter. If you aren’t sick of cucumbers and zucchinis yet you could get a quick crop in for a bumper autumn yield.

Watering

Keep the water up and remember to deep soak your soil rather than light watering on the surface. It is important to maintain a moist soil particularly around your tomatoes, cucumbers, basil, peppers and corn. From here on we will get some very hot days so a deep soak of an evening twice a week for most spots in your garden and maybe once more for the plants mentioned above should see a good crop and healthy plants.

Weeding

Weed your garden regularly with a cultivator to avoid having to get down on your hands and knees. Weeding is all about timing. Michael Plane and Joyce Wilkie of Allsun Farm at Gundaroo are often saying “the difference between a good gardener and a bad one is three days”.

If you give a quick run over your beds every three days with an appropriate tool, the weeding diminishes to a point where you can actually enjoy your garden without having to spend all day digging out grass. If you leave it to be a once-a-week activity or worse longer then the gardening does become a chore, patches will get away on you and you spend more time weeding than planting, composting, harvesting and the other more rewarding jobs. Weed quick and often and you’ll stay on top. A gram of prevention is worth a kilo of the cure (older imperial minds can do the conversion to ounces and pounds).

Pests

The worst pest this time of year is the visitor especially the drop-in variety. They tend to turn up an hour or so before lunch or dinner. These pests are troublesome in that they will keep you from your gardening for hours and then eat all the produce out of your patch. They’ll step where they shouldn’t and usually break something. The worst of it is when they leave they want to take a bag of your homegrown with them! The easiest organic treatment for these is to put them to work. Get them chopping wood or digging holes; weeding is a certain cure. Apply a task every couple of hours or so and they should move on quickly and usually this is enough to keep them from returning.

Happy New Year to all. Don’t forget to enter your produce in the show this year. Enjoy the season – summer can be hard work but autumn is just around the corner and this is the best time of the year by far. If you thought you were fat from too much “xmas pud”, all the treats you’ll be eating in autumn will add a couple of holes to your belt.

The garden keeps on giving and so does SAGE!

Our holiday season seems to be stretching out more than ever this year, but the garden has been coping brilliantly. Last night we had some friends around and cooked almost the entire meal from outside the door. We had steamed potatoes, roasted sweet potato, bean salad with basil (blue lake and purple king beans), and warm beetroot with goats cheese. I have to admit that we no longer have a milking goat, but when our boys were growing up (having found they were allergic in different ways to cow’s milk) I milked our goats for about 12 years.

This time of year usually meant a fridge full of 2 litre Fowler’s Vacola bottles of milk waiting to become cottage cheese or into one of my ventures into hard cheese.

The season must be good for all the birds and beasts as well because for the first time in 10 years we have been picking fruit from un-netted trees, including peaches and figs which are normally first on the bower birds’ menu. The first crop of figs is usually quite small on our trees, but this year we have already made the first batch of fig jam.

SAGE is looking good at present, and we are keeping up with the grass (just). The rabbits are still giving us trouble, so a priority this year will be rabbit-proof fencing. Or maybe we ask them nicely to just eat the grass.

The Southeast HARVEST festival is getting close as is the SAGE fundraiser, the Riverfeast. I would guess the tickets will be sold out in a heartbeat when they go on sale in February. We still aren’t sure if we will be having an open day after the festival; it all depends on the attendance of a certain very dynamic gardening personality. If it happens it will be huge and we will need all hands to the pump to organise the day. Please mark the weekend of the 16/17/18th March in your diaries.

We are almost ready for roof sheeting of “polehenge”, so we will be catching rainwater to mix with our bore water. We will then be pretty self-reliant for our watering needs. A covered area for shade and rain protection is a side benefit.

I think this year will see SAGE take the first steps possibly outside our site. The vision of all of the land around us becoming an intensely managed food producing area, integrating animals and commercial scale vegetable growing,
may start to happen. This will mean some kind of cooperative, CSA, or land bank to allow people to invest in their local food security. All you people out there who have an inkling how this strange beast called “the economy” works should put on your thinking caps to find creative ways to make this happen.

Speaking of things creative, you may have seen the new “Food and Art” guide that was put out by Council just before Christmas. I was lucky enough to be asked to provide artwork for the guide, which was a big job in a short timeframe,
but very enjoyable. Inside the back cover is a little dedication saying “inspired by SAGE”. It’s amazing where our journey is taking us.

I have been reading the discussion paper recently released called “South East Food: Growing the Regional Food Economy in South East NSW“. You can find it by searching “South East Food NSW” or click on the link. It is a wonderful document with heaps of new research and valuable ideas and links. It is the basis for getting our market more localised and should be read by all SAGE members. The opportunities for increased vegetable production in the area are huge. The figures for Bega Shire show the extent of the problem/opportunity: market value of vegetables in 2005–06 $16.8million, market value of commercial production in the shire for the same period $0.2million.

The numbers for Eurobodalla would be in the same order. Making up even half of this shortfall will create hundreds of jobs, as well as a vastly improved diet and lifestyle for us all. We should be able to knock that over in the next year, what
do you reckon?

As the end of 2011 comes around the corner, it is time to take stock of yet another jam packed year of growth for SAGE. Growth of membership, growth of skills and plant knowledge, and growth of actual stuff you can eat.

Rather than do a chronology of the year, let’s look at some of the main areas of the SAGE site as they are now, and use that as a springboard into what has happened and the exciting events of next year.

Our simple tool shed and propagation house expanded with a new lean to. This will be our vegetable washing, cleaning and packing area. It was recently sheltering about one thousand garlic bulbs hanging to dry. We have since cleaned and sorted them into next year’s seed (the most perfect, largest corms), corms for plaiting and those for sale as bulk garlic. There is finally something more beautiful to my eyes than a stack of seasoned firewood — a roof hung with garlic!

Wonderful organic garlic

A quick "how to" demonstration from a local expert and SAGE members were plaiting garlic like pros

Our “polehenge” is getting its beams ready for the roof cladding. We will then have over 100 square metres for rainwater collection. The tandoor has been placed on its brick base and will soon be insulated and rendered. Look forward to tandoor treats and pizzas in the new year.

Almost ready for the roof

The accessible garden beds are working well and producing good amounts of food for the Eurobodalla Healthy Living group. At the suggestion of one of the regular users of the accessible garden, we started investigating the possibility of installing an accessible toilet for those users who are in a wheelchair. It is difficult enough to get to the garden let alone have the hassle of having to get back into the car to use a toilet.

The 6-bed rotation gardens have been modified for better accessibility

Council has been very supportive of our approaches and we hope to submit a Development Application in the New Year. It would be good to have the facility available for the weekend of the Southeast HARVEST Festival in March.

The quality of veg raised organically at SAGE

The wicking beds are installed and working well. We will be planting more out to have crops ready for March next year. The remainder of the SAGE Block at the western end of the site is still a work in progress, with some useful perennial species planted out (hazelnut, fig, mulberry, passionfruit) and more to go after the rainwater tanks are installed.

The main vegetable beds are now fully planted out to our summer crops of corn, beans and pumpkin. The blueberries are settling in on the eastern end and future perennial beds may include rhubarb and asparagus.

The blueberries will not be harvested in the first season, to help them get established first

The orchard trees have really appreciated the rain and should bear well next year. The enclosure can’t come soon enough.

If the physical side of SAGE is powering along, the workshops and community engagement side is also booming. We have had monthly workshops on a great variety of topics including hay bale compost bins, wicking bed theory and practice as well as several site visits, most recently to the Old Mill Road organic farm at Turlinjah.

We have started supplying some community groups with food on a regular basis, and hope to expand this in 2012.

The newsletter has been forwarded to groups across the south east and beyond, and is universally acclaimed.

Sage has also been actively mentoring other community gardening groups, including Tuross, Narooma, Yass and Queanbeyan. Our involvement has also helped or inspired other regional projects, such as the new Eurobodalla “Food and Art Guide”, the South East Food project, The Eurobodalla 2030 Plan, the Southeast HARVEST and Riverfeast, and many others.

The South East Food project will be the basis for the producers of the greater south east region to access more of the local market through a more co-ordinated approach, and give buyers better year round access to low food mile produce.

The SAGE recipe book is printer ready and will be published early in 2012. It is a professional production with great recipes on every page. A must have for every kitchen on the South Coast. The launch will most likely co-incide with the Southeast HARVEST festival in March.

Available in early 2012

It is very likely that we will have another Open Day on the Sunday of the Southeast HARVEST festival, and it promises to be even larger than our mast where over one thousand people gathered for food, gardening talks and music.

It is astonishing how quickly SAGE has become one of the most recognised groups working in sustainability in NSW. Thanks to the support of our members, the local business community, the Eurobodalla Shire Council and our executive who have been most effective in actually doing real things. That is the point of difference that we have. We not only communicate, hold workshops and open days, we also produce food, and learn as we do so.

In Stuart Whitelaw’s absence Stuart Scobie chaired the meeting.

Attendance
Stuart Scobie, Janet Kohler-Bond, Penny Cook, Fraser Bailey

Apologies
Stuart Whitelaw, John Bourne

1. Minutes of the previous meeting
Minutes of the previous meeting were accepted by Stuart Scobie and seconded by Janet Kohler-Bond Carried

Matters arising
Fraser revisited the issue of a produce policy and was advised that the two Stuarts would begin work on this when Stuart Whitelaw returns from holidays.

2. Financial report/budget status
Janet reported a bank balance as at 30 June 2011 of $20746.29, a cash book balance of $15,458.88 which takes into account unpresented cheques. We have a general balance of $7,017.28. There was discussion about the reconciliation of the grant monies.

Janet will go ahead and engage an accountant to complete an end-of-year audit on the books.

3. Funding applications
The Caring for Country grant application has been completed and sent off. Work has commenced on another grant for monies to fund a part-time coordinator.

Stuart Scobie will make some enquiries as to our eligibility if we do not have ‘not for profit’ status and will complete the application if we are still eligible.

It was decided to apply for 3 years funding plus some capital funds to build a roof for the SAGE ‘house’.

4. SEH and river feast
Penny has organised a meeting of interested people to be held at the working bee. It was agreed that the feast should be catered for this year and any up-front payments will be made from the SAGE account.

5. Blackberry and rabbit eradication
Peter Gow has advised that the blackberries growing along the creek bank, and the rabbits, need to be eradicated. After discussion about how this would affect our organic status it was agreed that we should explore the process of cutting and painting. It was also agreed that he could go ahead with poisoning of the rabbits with Pindone.

Fraser will investigate the safety of this to birds and other animals.

Stuart Scobie moved a motion that we contact Peter Gow to agree to the rabbit poisoning as soon as possible on the proviso that Pindone is safe to use, and that we will advise Peter of our preference regarding the blackberries before spring. Seconded Fraser Bayley Carried
Stuart will send an email to Peter regarding this.

6. AGM
It was agreed to hold the AGM on 21 August at the next working bee.

Penny will advertise this to the members plus local press and a notice at the SAGE block.

Matters to be discussed will include the SAGE plan. It was also agreed to have a barbeque plus a home brew/wine tasting.

7. Working bee
The following will be undertaken at Sunday’s working bee:

• Information session about wicking beds
• Fluffing of mulch around garlic
• Emptying existing wicking bed to fix the leak
• Distributing worm juice on vegetables
• Relocating lavender from the herb garden to the ‘house’ path
• Six-bed rotation garden cleanup in preparation for upgrading
• General tidying up.

There will be worm juice available to those who bring their own containers.

8. Any other business
Helen Kay has suggested we have a link on our website to the CERES garden website in Melbourne which has a lot of useful resources.

Penny will ask Kate Raymond to do this.

Meeting closed at 5.30 pm