Kookaburra Organics offer a broad range of gardening options within our region and neighbouring Sunnie Coast. This week we follow Lise a Kookaburra apprentice, on her community involvement and how her back yard gardening program has grown. Lise started her venture by 1st turning her once lawned back yard into a place for garden workshops, a small semi-commercial garden venture and a change of lifestyle. I was interested to see whether her original vision has changed.
Lise has found a real community involvement has developed as a result of the isolation that her venture initially created. Being a sole operator the garden plot wasn’t an interactive space but rather than working alone she has created a collaborative space with other like minded growers and is now involved with Basilea and Grow Make Bake. Basilea is a small edible herb and flower farmlet supplying restaurants and fruit shops with a broad range of seasonal produce grown, harvested and distributed by Sarah Heath. Grow Make Bake from Burpengary are a swap group not only identifying the need for home gardeners, creative artists and cooks to exchange goods but also the need for community friendship. This group is driven by Gemma and now offers workshops, speakers and an avenue for the exchange of goods with a no cash exchange policy. There seems to be a trend for this exchange system and Harvest Swap at the Sunshine Coast also offers a similar system. Worth having a look at the sites to see what they have to offer.
This was the lifestyle of our previous generations – great to see its comeback.
http://picdeer.org/growmakebake.communityswap
