Coming April 2025, we're excited to be hosting two NEW events:
3-5pm, Saturday 5 April - Creative Label Making Workshop
Hosted by Craig from Draw Plants Together, create your own hand-made labels for your home made produce using low-fi printmaking techniques. Connect socially with others in this friendly, inclusive 2-hour workshop.
2-5pm, Sunday 13 April - An Afternoon of BarterJar
Come, swap and chat about your homemade produce and wares, hear how Maria Ciavarella covers off the basics of getting an olive from a tree into an edible state and enjoy a yummy afternoon tea.
Craig Burgess is an artist and learning facilitator with 20 years’ experience in a range of different learning environments. Craig set up ‘Draw Plants Together’ in 2023, and hosts inclusive plant drawing workshops indoors and outdoors in community spaces across Narrm. Draw Plants Together is a way for Craig to contribute his experience and skills in art and learning in connection with his love of plants and his interest in well-being.
As a Maths and Science teacher by training and then working in the nursery industry for close to two decades, Maria has come full circle and is back in a school again! Education is in her veins as Maria has long combined her passion for growing food sustainably, making great compost and delicious preserves with her skills as a teacher and communicator to provide organisations, communities, schools and households with a service that educates, inspires and most of all encourages a more sustainable way of living.
"There are many different ways of curing olives and at BarterJar I will demonstrate several, as well as provide tastings of ones already cured and pickled. Generic supermarket olives will never compare!"
PAST EVENTS
Our first inaugural BarterJar was held at Span Community Centre in Thornbury on 10 November 2019. And what an afternoon it was. There was a great community spirit - participants brought so many wonderful items to share in the barter raffle and for afternoon tea. Handcrafted wooden spoons, hand sewn cutlery holders, lemon curd, relish, custard, flower posies, rosemary salt, jam - you name it, we had it!
Karen Sutherland from Edible Eden Design shared so many wonderful insights and what are some really good plants, both native and exotic, to plant in our gardens that will supply us with great edible options.
Karen Sutherland from Edible Eden Design will be joining BarterJar to share her experience and stories about home growing, seed saving and getting the most from any garden space. Guests will be invited to talk about their produce and ask Karen’s advice to help solve any garden problems!
Growing up in a family of gardeners and farmers, Karen has grown her own food since she could wield a shovel and devoted her working life to gardening. For the last 10 years her focus has been on helping others to grow their own food, mostly in urban situations, through her teaching, writing and speaking. Her own garden has over 200 edible plants including 40 natives. Her first book, Tomato; Know Sow Grow Feast was released last year with co-authors Penny Woodward and Janice Sutton.
