Don’t miss the Eat My Garden Farewell to Winter planting day.
We will plant out a herb garden and the vegetable patch.
Eat My Garden Sharing Table will be at the open space. The Sharing Table is an opportunity for local growers to bring their produce and swap and share.
Anyone who has some extra produce from their garden or some food to share are welcome!
There will also be a sausage sizzle, a waste free event so please bring your own plate, cup or cutlery if possible.
Eat My Garden is excited to be having a community planter at Point Cook Popup Park 30 January to 28 April 2019. Thanks to Werribee Men’s Shed, Heryany Wongso and John Marks we have been able to decorate the planter and make it interactive.
The Eat My Garden planter has activity panels using some recycled materials and a chalk board for kids. Please come and have fun with it! While it is a great opportunity for local kids to experience the art and try something new, we would ask that parents supervise their children so the display is used by as many children as possible.
The Point Cook Pop -Up Park is a great community initiative
entering its second year. Eat My Garden thanks to the Popup Park Team and the Third Life for the opportunity to have the planter at the popup park.
Other activities upcoming Eat My Garden activities:
Eat My Garden Sharing Table
Thank you, to all those who have come to the Eat My Garden Sharing Table since it started in February 2018. We had variety of home grown vegetables and herbs, and good conversations around the sharing table. Now the program is on regularly twice a month, the first Saturday and the third Sunday, plus occasionally when some extra produce is available. Everyone is welcome, with or without any contributions!
Terracycle Waste Drop Off at Eat My Garden Sharing Table
Keeping waste out of landfill is important for a more sustainable life to reduce plastic waste. From February, a small bin will be placed near the Eat My Garden Sharing Table cart, to collect some plastic waste for Terra Cycle program with support from Eva Maddox. Thank you, Eva!
Accepted waste at this drop off point:
Beauty Products Recycling Program (any brand):
Oral Care Recycling Program (any brand)
Any brand of oral care products and its packaging (used toothbrush, toothpaste tubes and caps, dental floss containers, and outer packaging of toothbrushes/toothpaste tubes)
Please note: Electronic toothbrushes and electronic toothbrush parts are not recyclable through this program.
Oral Care Recycling Program – FAQ
Contact Lenses and the packaging (any brand)
Any brand of used contact lenses and blister packs
For more about TerraCycle Program, please check the TERRACYCLE website.
To all the Eat My Garden community members
We would like to wish you all a very happy and healthy New Year.
May 2019 be filled with joy and the many rewards of your gardening.
Thank you for your support throughout 2018, we look forward to more sharing of home grown produce and tips.
Stay safe this holiday season as you travel or work.
Earth School Tanabata Festival
On Sunday 8 July Eat My Garden participated in Tanabata Festival held by the Earth School in Newport. 
It was a beautiful day, filled with natural, sustainable and fun activities to share Japanese culture in many ways. Some of the activities included Bento making by Etsuka from Harapeko Kids, and Japanese music by A.Ya and traditional wish writing on Tanzaku strips.
With Eat My Garden children enjoyed playing with mud and made native plant seed balls.
We had a lovely winter day all outside!!
Eco Expo at Eco Living Centre
Thank you Shoestring Gardening Inc., for organising this wonderful event. It was a meaningful day to meet a lot 
of people who are actively working to make our community more sustainable, and want to learn more. Thank you also to Bruce Boddington for the great photos.
Eat My Garden Sharing Table
Many thanks go to John Marks who kindly built such a beautiful and functional cart for the Eat My Garden Sharing Table. The Sharing Table is open on the first Saturday and the third Sunday every month.
The cart has a chalk board at the side which is also used as a community notice board to share local information. Please let us know if you would like to share some community information.
The ‘Skill Sharing Program continues, please keep an eye out for the updates on Facebook.
Upcoming activities
Pop Up School in Point Cook on 1st of September
Eat My Garden is participating in Pop Up School in Point Cook which is part of the opening of Wyndham Learning Festival (1st to 8th September). Our activity is called ‘Celebrate our diversity through recipes’. For more information visit the Facebook Page.
If you would like to share:
These don’t have to be traditional recipes. Some recipes very common for you might be new for someone. Your own recipes are welcome, too.
For example, in Japan, carrots are used for some traditional cooking such as Kin-pira or soup, salad in many ways. To make Kin-pira, stir fry thin cut carrots with oil (you can add drops of sesame oil for flavor) and season with soy sauce. Sprinkle roasted sesame (optional). You can also add thinly slice Tofu, pork, or other vegetables such as capsicums and cook with carrots.
Japanese people miss these Japanese herbs which are not common in Australia:
Sansho (Japanese pepper) – use to add flavor for dishes such as grilled teriyaki eels, etc. Use the leaves as garnish
Japanese ginger – use to make pickles, miso
soup or tempura
Mitsuba (Japanese parsley) – use to add flavor to soup or dishes such as Chawan mushi.
Shiso – (Japanese mint) – use to make tempura or add flavor to salad, etc.
The autumn planting day turned out to be a simply stunning autumn day. We had wonderful time with lovely neighbours. The soil was prepared and tested prior to the planting and a wonderful local family added the best soil from their worm farm. We planted some herbs and winter vegetables and enjoyed a sausage sizzle and other goodies kindly brought by our neighbours who attended the planting day.
The winner for the Salad Competition was Steven who brought nice healthy salad to share. He also, very sustainably, brought his own bowl and cutlery to support the waste free event!
Thank you to all who helped make this such a successful event including those people who helped out with the preparations, promotion, printing and delivering flyers, cooking, photography, setting up and packing up… there were so many different people involved the day had such great community vibes!
Thank you to Bunnings Hoppers Crossing, Wyndham Park Community Centre, Werribee Men’s Shed, NatureWest and Loom Room – craft hub in Williamstown run by volunteers for all your support.
Micro Skill Sharing Program
In collaboration with a local group, Locafolks, Eat My Garden is excited to announce we have started micro skill sharing program. This program is a little different from our current workshops, in that we are sharing each other’s skills together and the program enables us to do things together in a small group. In May, we made small mesh grocery bags to use in place of plastic bags. In June, we will be learning how to make bees wax food wraps.
Some possible sessions in June and July will also include:
This Skill Sharing Program will be held on the 2nd Tuesday of the month from 10am to 12pm in June and July, other sessions will be scheduled as they become available. There might be some irregular sessions on other days and at different times. If you are interested in some sessions, but would not be available on week days, please contact us.
If you also would like to share your skills (e.g. gardening, crafts, cooking, arts, exercise, etc.) with other people, please let us know! Please see Facebook for more information or contact Miwako on 0423 363 374 or share.group3030@gmail.com.
Eat My Garden Sharing Table
Please note that the Sharing Table is now held regularly on the first Saturday and second Sunday of every month, if you would like to share your gardens produce or any other items you have made, or you are looking for some fresh fruit and vegetables and a conversation with other interested gardeners, come along and say hello, we’d love to see you there!
Throughout March Eat My Garden has continued to grow our activities and community interactions and we are grateful for the support and enthusiasm of our members and the broader Point Cook community.
The Sharing Table is now held regularly on the 
2nd and 3rd Sunday of every month, the next two dates are May, 13th and 20th. There is an Autumn Planting Day planned for Sunday 6th of May followed by BYO BBQ and Salad Competition.
Where: The green strip near Dakota Place and Lancaster Drive, Point Cook
When: Sunday 6th of May, 11am to 1.30pm
Please keep an eye on the Facebook page for further details and to RSVP, also let us know through Facebook if you can volunteer to set up and welcome people as they arrive.
Eat My Garden had a joint event with Eva Maddox from Transition Wyndham, at the Popup Park on 11th of April from 10 to 11am, this was called LOL for Sustainability: “Help Us and Save Our Planet”. The event was a great success and a good number of kids joined in with their parents. The activity included teaching participants to use newspaper origami to make small bins and bin liners to reduce plastic bag use.
Kim and Miwako have also been selected for the Gardening Champion program at Saltwater CC as the Eat My Garden team and will be starting regular activities there from the 14th April.
They are excited to enhance their gardening skills and knowledge with other enthusiastic local gardeners, and we are looking forward to sharing the learning with the local community through Eat My Garden activities.
Send us your ideas for the Autumn Planting Day, and please RSVP via the Eat My Garden Facebook page event. If you are thinking of your own planting for winter, come along to the Autumn planting day for tips and ideas, at the same time meet the interesting people in your neighbourhood and join the community fun.
As the season changes, the mornings get darker and the weather cooler, it is harder to get out into the garden or to go for a walk. Getting involved in Eat My Garden can help you to gently improve our health by getting active in the garden and producing fresh food and herbs to share with local neighbours and friends, encouraging a healthy lifestyle with exercise and fresh food. We have a number of great activities planned for the first half of 2018.
Eat My Garden will be part of the Point Cook Pop Up Park activities so come on down and say hello, we’ll let you know more about what we are up to closer to the time, keep an eye on the Facebook page or website.
Residents are also invited to keep an eye out for the Eat My Garden sharing table that will have fruit and veggies available for your collection. The sharing table has been open on two occasions and has been very successful. Local residents kindly brought some fresh produce from their gardens and added them onto the table. Eat My Garden will have share tables on second and the third Sunday of every month from 28 March, keep an eye out on Facebook for locations.
Over the next few weeks we will feature seasonal herbs. If you are thinking of planting for autumn and winter why not try chives, curry, dill, parsley, coriander and thyme so that you can gain their benefits over winter.
For example, chives are thought to help improve sleep, muscle movement, learning and memory, and coriander is thought to lower blood sugar levels, be good for digestion and lowering cholesterol.
Whatever you grow, let us know if you have anything spare or any seeds or seedlings you would like to share and we’ll let everyone know through Facebook or we can make them available to others through the share table.
Gardening gets us outside and gives us the resources to produce our own fresh food.
‘To plant a garden is to invest in tomorrow.’
Welcome to 2018, to start the year we thought we’d encourage everyone to get out in their garden.
The premis behind the creation of Eat My Garden was to improve our health by getting active in the garden and producing fresh food and herbs to share with our neighbours and friends, building community, and encouraging a healthy lifestyle with exercise and fresh 
food.
It’s simple really; gardening gets us outside and gives us the resources to produce our own fresh food. Audrey Hepburn once said:
“To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow.”
Maybe it would be better to go one step further and say:
‘to plant a garden is to invest in the future.’
Gardening has been shown to improve your health by decreasing the risk of stroke and heart disease, helping to reduce weight and improving mood because it is a great stress buster and improves the gardeners overall sense of wellbeing. What you plant in the garden will depend on what you like to eat or look at. What about considering some herbs?
Borage is a good one, it’s easy to grow, attracts the bees and both the flowers and leaves are edible.
Borage has been shown to help decrease anxiety and promote healing, the seeds can be used ground up for eczema. The flavour is similar to cucumber and when the plant is young you can use the leaves in salads or sandwiches.
As the plant grows (it can become quite large) the leaves and stems get fuzzy and you will need to cook the leaves before eating them, putting them in soup will help take the furriness away.
The flowers are also edible and are a pretty addition to drinks and salads, or even on deserts. For recipe ideas search borage recipes, there are a few really good ideas around – we found one that includes deserts and salads.
Whatever you grow, let us know if you have anything spare or any seeds or seedlings you would like to share with others and we’ll let everyone know through Facebook.
Happy gardening everyone!
2016 was a busy year and summer was hot, many of our garden beds have become dry and the plants have died…
Don’t worry, Eat My Garden is having a replenishing and replanting workshop of Eat My Gardeners and any other interested Point Cook residents!
Come along and participate in a hands on demonstration about how you can revive your garden bed for winter replanting and meet and mingle with other keen gardeners and sustainability enthusiasts.
A huge thank you to Bunnings in Hoppers Crossing who have generously donated potting mix, compost and seedlings, so there will be an opportunity to get some seedlings, potting mix and compost to take home to your garden – for free!
Date: Saturday 22 April 2017
Time: 1pm
Location: Corner Hollington Cres and Ventura place, Point Cook
RSVP: To let us know you will be there, email Miwako Okumura: miwako59@hotmail.com or Libby Muir: libsim@bigpond.com.au
It would be great to see you all then!
Spring is here and Eat My Garden has started planting new spring/summer gardens with new members and some of the members who have needed to replant after the winter months.
Over the past few months Eat My Garden has built a connection with Gardening Swap, Point Cook, this is a great initiative that provides the means for gardeners to swap produce and plants so that we can all benefit from the talent and toil of our neighbours.
Gardening Swap, Point Cook run swap meets on the fourth Sunday of each month at the Jamieson Way Community Centre – you will find us at the BBQ area out the back of the centre. Come and join us on a Sunday morning from 10.30am to 11.30am, rain, hail or sunshine!
Not sure what to do with the produce you grow or swap?
Join us on the 19th of October at Featherbrook Community Centre when Miwako will be joining forces with Susie from NatureWest to give the community a cooking demonstration including Japanese Sushi Balls and some vegetable dishes.
Susie will be talking about the local beaches and the beautiful diversity of shells that you can discover through our local coastal area.
This event is proudly organised in collaboration with Friends of Featherbrook.
Watch the Facebook Group for more details.
eatmygarden3030.com 