Published on Thursday, 22 June 2023 at 9:15:00 AM
Locals will soon be treated to fresh citrus, olives and native bush species from Transition Town Vincent’s (TTV) Community Food Forest, which is located near Litis Stadium.
The City of Vincent provided the local town team a $2000 environmental grant to launch its food forest, which is a collection of productive trees and plants that help each other thrive.
The food forest is located in the northwest corner of Litis Stadium.
Volunteers were joined by Mayor Emma Cole and councillors Suzanne Worner and Dan Loden at TTV’s first planting day on 18 June.
“It was lovely to join many volunteers in planting the first batch of food plants with a hearty mix of biochar and FOGO compost from our residents’ green top bins,” said Ms Cole.
“The Community Food Forest is another brilliant sustainability initiative from our local community group Transition Town Vincent, very proudly supported by City of Vincent.
“The food forest will bring more greenery to the area and will be a great space for the community to enjoy and eventually harvest.”
Councillors Dan Loden and Suzanne Worner with Mayor Emma Cole. Picture: Steve Worner.
TTV’s Chris Cutress said volunteers helped plant 17 food trees including a mixture of citrus, figs, olives and native bush food plants.
“We hope to demonstrate that by mixing FOGO compost and biochar with the in-situ soil, we can give the plants the best healthy start in their new location,” he said.
“We laid cardboard around the trees to suppress weeds and covered the cardboard with a thick layer of mulch from Vincent’s free mulch pile.
“People volunteered their time where they could, including digging holes, mixing compost and biochar, watering, making morning teas, taking photographs and spreading mulch.
“We even had a 3-year-old getting his hands dirty planting the trees.”
Mr Cutress said the group would plant more food trees in the future when they were able to source the plants they wanted.
“Many of the food plants we want to have at the food forest are not available in nurseries at the moment, so we will be purchasing more plants and holding another planting day later in the year,” he said.
“We will also be calling for volunteers to maintain the trees, including watering, weeding and general plant health activities.
“We will be measuring our success by regularly monitoring growth of the plants.
“The plants we put into the ground will hopefully be there for many years to come and provide inspiration, food and shade to many generations of local residents.”
More information about Vincent’s environmental grants is available here.
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