Patchwork Urban Farm

11/10/2023

It's been a little while since we've posted an update, as we have been making some difficult decisions about how to proceed with this season.
Due to various changes to personal circumstances, our team has less time and capacity for the farm this year. As such we will be changing the nature of our operation for the coming growing season.

We will no longer be operating our own CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) veggie box subscription, but will instead be selling our produce through Southern Harvest Association. Southern Harvest is an excellent organisation which aggregates produce from local farmers in the region and sells veggie box subscriptions to many Canberra households. We're looking forward to working with them this year. If you're interested in signing up for their boxes (which will have some of our veggies in them!), check out their website here: https://southernharvest.org.au/

We want to express our deepest thanks to our CSA members for their support over the last two years 💚 We have really valued the connections we've established with them all, and are sad to lose the direct link to the wonderful people who have been eating the food we've grown. We're hoping this season of operating at a lower capacity means we will be able to continue producing food for the local community in the longer term 🌱

14/09/2023

Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance has 5 days left on their crowdfunder to publish this book about our food system, the deeply entrenched exploitation in it, and how some people are inspired to engage with it while navigating the costs and challenges on land, community, health and low budgets.
Go to their page for more info and to donate/get a copy follow this link - https://www.pozible.com/project/eating-democracy

20/06/2023

Cities are an integral part of the struggle for equitable access to food, which is one of the core goals of our organisation.

Urban agriculture and food access in cities are just a couple of the many possible topics for proposals to the Green Institute conference coming up in August! If you are interested in food sovereignty in cities, or other aspects of how we can transform cities to help address the many crises of our time, consider making a submission to the Green Institute for a presentation, panel, or workshop at the conference. Submissions close on the 26th of June.

At least one of our team will be in attendance, and we're hoping to see some familiar faces there even though it's a little far from home! 🌱

The Green Institute is calling for proposals for presentations, panels and workshops from activists, advocates, academics and change-makers of all kinds for a two-day conference to share ideas, make connections, and plan the green transformation of our cities. More info at www.greeninstitute.org.au/events/green-institute-conference-2023/

13/05/2023

In honour of International Composting week, here’s a window into how we’re making our own black gold!
Being able to reliably nourish our soils and plants with good quality compost is essential to the small scale farm. Not only does compost provide many important nutrients but also as Walter Jehne speaks about, the more organic matter in soils, the more water holding capacity the soils have, which looks like it will be even more important with approaching heat after three years of La Niná here.

We’re also delighted to have another reason to connect with great local organisations like The Food Co-op Shop & Café and Southern Harvest Association through this too!

04/05/2023

It’s our last week of this season!
Wow, 25 weeks of joy, curiosity, rain and sun has come and gone so fast. The nights also come around so quickly now, and we’re looking forward to sleeping in a bit more.
Thanks to all our fantastic members, landsharers, helpers and friends who make this what it is!

27/04/2023

CSA box 24 has the welcome addition of saffron milkcaps! These mushrooms are a delight to forage under the pines at this time of year, and are one of the best mushrooms to learn how to find because of their distinct orange colouring. The tops have concentric circles if you look closely, and on the underside you can see the orange that bleeds when you cut the mushroom is almost fluorescent against the gills.
This week we also saw the first of our broccoli!

13/04/2023

Week 22 already! As we approach the end of our season we are also enjoying the first of our potatoes! The unlucky members who can’t eat garlic get to have some raspberries to make up for it.

30/03/2023

Some of the beets we harvested this morning were just huge! Its been a season to try every beetroot recipe we know, beetroot salad, beetroot stew, borscht, even beetroot ice cream!

CSA week 20 also brings some quinces, carrots, lots of herbs and greens, and some hard choices between beans, tomatoes, pears, rhubarb and zucchinis.

Hope you’re all enjoying some of this special autumn light around the skies as much as we are!

16/03/2023

News from week 18 of our CSA season includes that our compost is looking very good - that kind of dark crumble is our favourite, especially after receiving a lot of low quality compost in previous seasons.

This week we also adjusted our watering schedules… while we thought transiting into autumn meant cooler temps - it looks like it’s going to be over 35 degrees on the weekend!

09/03/2023

It’s week 17! Today went really smoothly. The carrots we dug up were grown at a plot where we haven’t grown carrots before. We think they’re the sweetest carrots we’ve had this season 😊 there could be many reasons for this, such as being in the ground for a bit longer than usual, the time of year or this particular site having better soil or maybe the carrot gods were here for us this week 🤔🥕👩🏼‍🌾

Also had more raspberries this week to add to the punnets so everyone could have some this time 🙃

02/03/2023

CSA week 16 and we’re in autumn!
At the end of another long Thursday, we can’t have think of much to say other than enjoy your veggies!

23/02/2023

“Good food for all is not a radical concept.”

These words from Rosanna Morris have been something we pondered and talked about together, and we’ve been thinking more deeply about how important using a sliding scale payment system can be.

We asked a couple of our members who pay lower than the average value of the box what their experience is like and this is what two of them said:

“Recently I have been thinking how really grateful I am to be a member of the Canberra Patchwork Urban Farm, and especially, how grateful I am to be benefiting from the bottom end of their sliding scale initiative. As a single parent on low-income, the gift of the sliding scale is invaluable to me and my little family - socially, economically and nutritionally – as I have been able to consume wonderful local fresh vegetables, fruits and preserves, from lovely people with whom I am able to chat when collecting them. Without the gift of that sliding scale, I don’t know what we might be consuming, and I really wanted my kid to know that sourcing local, plastic-free organic food is priority for us and the world. Thankyou – I so hope that this sort of enabling sliding scale can be engineered to work in every aspect of life.”

“When joining Patchwork urban farm I was really surprised about the pay scale. I work hard but am on a single low income so sometimes it is hard to afford healthy items, they often get neglected as "treats" over bills needing to be paid. It was hard to admit that I needed the help but sometimes I have no money left over and the scale has made it sustainable for me. I'm very grateful and if I could, I would love to pay to help someone else to obtain lovely fresh vegetables as others have for me. Thank you Patchworkers.”

22/02/2023

Introducing Bea! Since December we've had the great pleasure of working with, and welcoming Bea to our team of Patchworkers.

She has spent time working on farms while in Switzerland for the last two years, as well as other farms on this beautiful continent - and has been a long time backyard grower too.

When asked "Why Patchwork?", Bea says:
"I joined Patchwork because I believe that good food should be available to everyone and its production needs to be regenerating, whether that be soil or social relationships, so that we can continue to grow food and strengthen communities. There’s also so much joy in the diversity of food such as a pink tomato or purple carrot!! It’s important to me to keep this alive when so much is lost to the uniformity of industrial systems."

Everyone who knows Bea well knows her favourite vegetable is the tomato! Bea says "The quality of a good tomato is so different from many shop bought ones, and so I always find it the most satisfying to grow and eat. I also love the smell of the foliage."

Today, Bea is grateful for her morning coffee, dogs, and the opportunity to do work that is meaningful to her.

17/02/2023

Head down to the multicultural festival today for some fantastic music and food from all over the world! Through some special connections you can even get our blackberries with your ! 🥞🥞🥞

16/02/2023

This week we’ve had the joy of picking some blackberries from Pialligo! One of our members made a salad with grated beetroot, blackberries, mayonnaise, salt and pepper! A wildly good combination apparently, though I think we’re lucky if any blackberries make it all the way home.

Today Keri, another of our members came and helped us wash and count veggies, meaning that we could get a headstart putting aside our garlic to plant next month. Last year we planted 1750 cloves, this year even more!

09/02/2023

Week 13 of our CSA! Basil and beetroot are reliably producing this season despite the constant hot and cold fluctuations… This week we also have a decent amount of tomatoes to give to everyone - yum!
Plus some friends with a nashi pear tree shared the abundance!
Community supported agriculture for the win!

02/02/2023

Week 12 of CSA boxes and our zucchinis, cucumbers, and tomatoes are starting to take off! Hoping to get more of them over the next few weeks :)

25/01/2023

CSA week 11! Featuring a blackberry hand, native violets and a blackberry soda water to enjoy while picking more blackberries!

19/01/2023

CSA week 10. From scorching heat last Thursday we’re now getting cold at our pickup stall even wearing jumpers. We’re feeling relieved the hail storm on Sunday didn’t affect any of our crops but also pretty nervous as extreme weather becomes more normal.

Thanks to all our members for supporting us, as we keep learning how best to grow food in unpredictable times! 💚

12/01/2023

Week 9 is bringing some heat today! 34 degrees is pretty hot in case you haven’t been outside all day like us.

Hanging out in the shade of our pickup stall with the refreshing aroma of coriander and basil isn’t so bad though.

It’s been a great season so far for the beetroot, and today we also have some of our onions, leeks, turnips and cucumbers to choose from. Plus lots of greens,herbs and carrots.

This week we also had an interesting zucchini appear amongst the leaves, and many hose showers!

05/01/2023

Box share 8 and with the sporadic bouts of warmth our summer veg are starting to take off-we’ve got the first of the zucchinis in this week’s box. The beetroot are also blushing up beautifully. Swipe for some carroty shenanigans!

22/12/2022

Are you, like one of our carrots this week, feeing split about how to source your veggies next year?

Well, we have some spaces to bring in more members for our CSA veggie boxes in January!

See our photos for the large and small box sizes, which are available on a sliding scale payment to make delicious, nutritious veggies accessible for all!

Thanks to our member Tamara and rabbit Sappho for being our models!

15/12/2022

CSA veggies week 6 this week! Featuring a special guest photographer, the first round of basil, carrots and zucchinis for the season, a new method using hessian for evaporative cooling, and the most rainbow edible flower topping yet! 😊🍀🌈🥕💚

08/12/2022

We’re so excited to be harvesting some beetroot today! It’s feeling a bit festive with all the red and green. How delightful are Kim and Kristina too!!

01/12/2022

Happy first (calendar) day of summer! It’s felt pretty cool to us, but our tomatoes and zucchini are coming along.

This week we’ve got lots of our usual greens, herbs and of course broad beans, plus some apple and blackberry jam we made at the end of last season.

We’ve also really enjoyed hearing more about our member’s lives, even though we’re all a bit tired by Thursday evening.

24/11/2022

Box #3 and we are officially in peak broad bean season with a total of 33kg harvested today. Our favourite recipes so far include a good ole stir fry, chargrilled chips (from the shells) and broad bean hummus (if you can be bothered to double shell them!)

We’re also keen to try some broad bean falafels!

15/11/2022

So glad to be in the Canberra Times this week!
Growing food and deepening community connections is such an important and joyful part of climate action!

Meet the people passionate about growing food in an urban setting.

10/11/2022

Week 1 and we’re back!
So delightful to see our members old and new today, as well as getting into our rhythm harvesting, washing and counting all these beautiful veggies!
Both big and small boxes this week have lots of fresh greens and herbs, plus garlic scapes, peas and broad beans. It’s a good thing we have warm weather now to enjoy some salads!

Click to check out our broad bean forest and some of the Cos Verde lettuces. 💚

21/10/2022

We are very excited that our season will be starting in the next few weeks and are growing more veggies this time around! If you or someone you know want to apply to be members of our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm, using a sliding scale payment, go to tiny.cc/csapatch ! We can't wait to be supplying your weekly veggie needs all from local Canberra yards!