by Tanya Steele
Healesville’s homegrown food fair is set to kick off for its second year and continues to bring home gardening to the community.
The fair began 2022 and was themed around food security and home gardening, which became a key issue during lockdown.
Healesville Community Garden President Esme Pfeifferr is excited to bring the fair back and wants to continue to bring the community together around gardening and local, homegrown food.
“This is our second year and when we put it on last year, we did it because of people’s experience during Covid,” she said.
“During those long lockdowns, things like food security became an issue for people, people started to think about where their food came from and they started to have this kind of awakening interest in home gardening.”
The free food fair event will be held on Sunday 2 April from 9am to 11.30am at the Healesville Community Garden and Brungergalk (Coronation Park).
Ms Pfeifferr is hoping making the fair an annual one will create connections in the Healesville community and keep the message strong.
“One of the reasons why we think it’s good for us to have this now as an annual event, is to keep that in front of people,” she said.
“There’s so many fantastic benefits to gardening, one of which is the social aspect of coming together and gardening with other people.”
Many stalls from other community groups and organisations will be present at the fair and Ms Pfeifferr thinks this will appeal to anyone who comes.
“What’s special about this is that we’re really trying to build up something key.”
The community garden is keen to support this interest in food production and managing food waste, as well as connecting local groups that have similar interests.
Honouring Wurundjeri culture has also been a strong feature of the garden over the past few years.
This year, Wurundjeri Man Thane Garvey-Gannaway will open the fair with a Welcome to Country.
Ms Pfeifferr will also acknowledge the cultural artworks that have been created for the garden by Aunty Kim Wandin and Lewis Bursill-Wandin who are related to William Barak.
The artworks include Bunjil’s Nest by Aunty Kim Wandin and Woiwurrung words inscribed on manna gum by Lewis Bursill-Wandin using traditional wood burning techniques.
Ms Pfeiffer is looking forward to sharing the day with the community.
“Being in nature, harvesting your own food and sharing these delights with others is so rewarding,” Ms Pfeiffer said.
