The crowds poured in, there were 2,000-3,000 people waiting for the gates to open when I can through at 8.50am, and there’s at least 3 other gates they could come in. It was milder weather, an easier day for the stalls out in the open.
A farmer from Henty, NSW came through, he’d worked some years ago with the FAO (the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation) and was interested to hear what NGO’s were doing with agriculture and food security. He reflected on the massive advances that Australian farmers had made in the past decade in improved sustainable farming practices, he and most of the inland NSW farmers were using "zero tillage" and had reinstated the mixed farming approach of having various crops to spread the risk and adapt to change.
He was keen to say Australian farmers deserve respect for the way they’ve adapted to drought and changing rainfall patterns and this recent experience is a good experience to draw from for overseas development work. He was also using GM canola seed and he believed strongly that there was a legitimate role for this sort of agriculture.
I’d have loved to have had Clive Blazey of Diggers Seed around to join the conversation, Clive had come past on Thursday, he’s very concerned about the centralising of seed ownership into the Montanto company, and the attaching of GM technologies to seed.
A number of school teachers and kinder teachers came by, many were looking for activity and curriculum ideas. They liked the seedling trays we had with the individual cell for each plant. It prevents the need to tear the roots when separating seedlings grown in open punnets, this helps the plant to continue growing without transplant shock when planted out.
A steady flow of young university students came though. It was amazing to see their enthusiasm for food gardens. They all collect seedlings and seeds to take home: "We all have food gardens now, it’s not cool to not grow food" and "I’ve no idea how to grow plants but we all get out there and make the garden. We made an opening in the fence to the neighbouring house and garden with them too, I don’t know what to do but I join in and we work as a group."
The hens, Pula & Wellie, continued to be a big draw card. We lifted their fence so people could get a better view and children explored by putting their hands in with some grain and letting the hens peck it from their hands.
One father with children, after getting some seedlings, quietly put $100 in the cash basket as a donation. This has never happened to me before, that’s a lot of money - and the next customer wondered why I was a bit distracted: I was shocked!
So that’s some of our day, a big and busy day with lots of people, interesting and generous people.
Gardeners are good people! Everyone should garden.