The food: perfect!  The atmosphere: electric!  The hosts: delightful.  The weather: fine.  The gardening achievements: spectacular. 

Over 25 volunteers came to Gopal and Mamta's flat in North Dandenong to create a magical day...

It all began with a compost workshop!  Ok, so it's not the romantic intro that you were hoping for, but it was informative and practical - the volunteer crew started Mamta and Gopal's compost pile with donated layers of torn newspaper, food scraps, casuarina needles, straw, manure - and a ball of comfrey in the middle as an activator.  There were 6 people there when the workshop began, and over 20 by the time that it finished.

Mamta and Gopal and their daughters Nishtah and Leisha welcomed all to their home and the introductions began - aged from 1 year to about 70 years, and coming from nextdoor, up the road, the next suburb, Sydney (thanks for coming Ben), the Eastern suburbs, the Western suburbs and the Northern sububs, we were all there to learn more about gardening and to help this family start a super-productive food growing garden.

Our aims were

a) to create a woodchip pathway to the clothesline with a vege and herb bed along it,

b) to create a pathway to the shed with a long vege bed along one side (the East facing fence) and two key-hole gardens on the other side of the path,

c) to plant two deciduous fruit trees on the Western side of the house,

d) to teach and learn

e) to have fun.

Amazingly, all aims were achieved by 4pm!  The highlight of the day was the food - Mamta had cooked enough spiced rice for 30+ people, a beautiful chickpea curry, about 50 delicious naan breads, some chilli dips and more.  While this feast left some feeling keen for a kip, the keen members of the crew soon inspired us to work on!

a H U G E thankyou to all and a special thanks to our hosts - Mamta, Gopal and Nishtah - for making us feel so welcome!