VEGETABLES, herbs, plants, seeds, jams, succulents, drinks – but fried cannon balls!
Fried cannon balls are a dish made from cabbage, said Dylan Graves as he extolled the virtues of Stanthorpe’s community garden.
Mr Graves and wife Evita joined 10 other stallholders at Saturday’s market to sell their excess vegetables.
“Almost everything is grown without artificial chemicals and there was excellent chat about how to improve local soils and what can be grown,” Mr Graves said.
“The community gardens are open twice a week for anyone to go along and garden and learn about composting, taking cuttings, germinating seeds, and so on.”
Mr Graves said the community garden was a great way to meet people and to share produce and knowledge. There is a new initiative to develop such a garden in Warwick.
“The food available is healthier and fresher – usually picked on the same day – locally grown and in season, and without artificial chemicals for pest, disease, weed control, and fertilisers and other things,” Mr Graves said.
“Food miles are really low, probably mostly less than 15km compared to a lot of local supermarket food which is grown in the market gardens near Stanthorpe, trucked to Sydney or Brisbane and back, 500 or 1600km!
“Also, the amount of packaging involved in selling these goods at the market was minimal – most stalls were conscious of how overpackaged everything is nowadays and made awesome efforts to have none, reused, or compostable packaging only,” he said.
“Next market is a month away and we will be there again,” Mr Graves said.
“Hopefully more people will go and support healthier, more ethical food choices.”
