Urban Agriculture

Why Urban Agriculture

The role of urban agriculture on our site is to reconnect city folk with how and where their food is grown by demonstrating through interactive and participatory learning. 

As our cities expand and more pressure is placed on our green wedges and peri-urban areas, urban agriculture is becoming increasingly important.  Urban agriculture can help to address food insecurity, provide a place for human connection to food and land, and increase biodiversity within our urban environments.

Who we work with

Since 2019, Melbourne Polytechnic has been working on our urban agriculture site as a demonstration space to teach their Horticulture students about food production and urban farming.  

 

 

 

Reservoir High School VCAL students have participated in the construction of our site and have already built many of our larger wicking beds that sit on the urban farm. They also painted two murals of fruit and vegetables on the site containers, beautifying our site. We are incredibly thankful for their invaluable contribution.  

Darebin Information Volunteer Resource Service (DIVRS) is a non-profit organisation that offers a variety of resources which aim to protect and support vulnerable members of the Darebin Community in Melbourne, Australia. DIVRS have access to the wicking beds that you see on the Alphington Farmers Market site. Volunteers cultivate, plant and harvest produce from these beds which contribute to their Urban Food program, delivering fresh food to people who are experiencing food insecurity within Darebin.

Volunteer base: Our Urban Farm volunteers help with all aspects of food production on site, from building beds, planting, watering, maintaining and harvesting produce. We have working bees every week that are open to the public, so get in touch here.

Wicking Beds

As we are building our urban agriculture on an old tip site, all plantings must be above ground to ensure the safety of the produce. We have a large selection of wicking beds on site. Wicking beds are a great resource in urban environments, especially in our drought stricken and hot Victorian state. We regularly run wicking bed workshops with Very Edible Gardens, join our mailing list below to stay tuned on upcoming opportunities. 
We have two different types of wicking beds on-site that have already produced over 150kgs of abundant summer crops, including tomatoes, eggplants, beans, pumpkins, basil and other leafy greens. Over 40 different species have been planted so far on site. These harvests will be distributed to the local community such as Reservoir High School.

Grow / Source / Eat Boxes 

In August 2019 we launched veggie bags and boxes full of organic produce picked straight from the farm here in Alphington. The response from the local community has been great and we are now in planning for a rolling subscription from March 2020 (subscribe below to hear when they launch). In the meantime, we have a 5 week subscription from February 13th to March 12th  – sign up here.