Creating Native Gardens
Native Food Gardens – Purple Pear Farm
Our latest native food garden is to happen at Purple Pear Farm. Here are our latest efforts.
Native Food Gardens – Maitland-Rutherford Guides Hall
Using a Commonwealth Government grant in October 2020, Slow Food Hunter Valley created a garden at the Maitland-Rutherford Guides Hall in Maitland to exhibit over 30 species of Australian native plants that represent food used by Aboriginal people along the east coast and hinterland of New South Wales.
Some of the plants in this garden are already listed on the Ark of Taste, and we will add another 25 from this garden. This is the first step in protecting them from extinction, if not exactly in the biological sense, then in the sense of preserving the knowledge of them. The Guides will look after them, monitor their growth, flowering and fruiting, and collect seeds for propagation. The Guides and other interested people can harvest them. This might encourage others in the community to grow them, and lead to them becoming better known.
The work has been recognised by local MP Jenny Aitchison.
Interested in Hosting a Native Food Garden?
Further native food gardens are being planned. If you are interested in hosting a native food garden on your land, have a suggestion for one on public land, or have a suggestion for an Australian native food plant to include in one of our gardens, please contact us using the form below.