Sustainability Festival in Korumburra

The Sustainability Festival held at Coal Creek in Korumburra on Sunday was an interesting exercise. We spoke to quite a few people about sustainable farm practices as well as some lengthy discussions about Deep Ecology, Regenerative Agriculture, Brittle Landscapes and even riparan vegetation.
It's always great to have one-on-one discussion on these topics because there are so many misconceptions about 'sustainability'.
I'll always remember the views (expressed to me a few years ago) of a sandminer about the sustainability of his business. He genuinely believed that his business was sustainable because he would move to another site when the sand resource was finished! Unfortunately that's the view of most people in business, and probably the majority of the rest of the community.

Sales of eggs weren't great on Sunday. We sold a bit of our garlic but surprisingly not a single chillie ristra. Had a number of enquiries about 'what is a chillie ristra' and of course the answer can be seen on the left. It's a bunch of chillies strung together, hanging to dry. Ours are very hot and we have a great time adding them and our garlic to the beef and lamb also grown on the farm.
The Sustainability Festival was run for the first time by South Gippsland Shire Council and it worked OK as a first event, but they will need to attract more people if it is to work long term. We like to support this type of initiative but there have to be enough patrons to make the event 'sustainable' in terms of sales. We need to at least cover our costs to make it worth the effort.
Check out some of the info on the Friends of Bass Valley Bush website and blog at http://bassbush.htmlplanet.com/

Venus Bay Farmers' Market

We will be at Venus Bay Farmers' Market on Sunday for the first time. It's a special market being run because of the long weekend here in Victoria (Labour Day is Monday.)
Don't know how many eggs to take but I'm told it's been a pretty good market when run in the past.Venus Bay is about on the limit for us as far as distance is concerned - it's almost an hour from the farm and as a matter of policy that is our cut-off point.
Then next weekend we have two markets - Pakenham Farmers' Market at the Pakenham Cultural Centre for the first time. Hopefully there will be a bit of promotion and we will get a good crowd.
Then next Sunday we will be at a sustainability festival at Coal Creek Heritage Park in Korumburra. We expect that in between selling eggs and garlic, we will have time to talk about farm sustainability principles and things like Deep Ecology,  Brittle Landscapes and Regenerative Agriculture.