Eudlo Town

Eudlo General Store a couple of days ago. Luckily the store reopened the next day, the water kept at bay with sandbagging.

Sweethearts Cafe was closed yesterday due to flooding, so it would be great to get some people there in a few weeks time for our February gathering (Sunday the 6th 8.30-10.30am) to help support them and to enjoy some great coffee.

Many farms in crucial food productions area have been affected by these floods, so it will be more important than ever for each home and family to start growing some food in their backyards until our farmers get back on their feet, so our Seed Saving group will be more important than ever.

cheers,
Sonya

Events and a couple of new ideas...

It's coming up to a busy time in Eudlo... next Saturday - March 20 - is the WOEIE Festival (Where On Earth Is Eudlo?) in the school grounds from noon.

Then the following week it's time again for the Eudlo Markets - this will be our Autumn Markets. Transition Town Eudlo will have a 'talking tent' there where you'll be able to sit and chat about what's happening and we'll be doing some seed saving there too.



Following on from our last meeting, it was raised that our regular Sunday mornings are a great time to find out what's on, so perhaps we need a Eudlo Network Group.

Some people who are in the loop and know what's happening - workshops, tours, guest speakers... any type of local community events that fit the theme of building resilience - and sharing that information with everyone else.

Another group worth considering could be an arts and crafts group. We need skills kept alive for the future - do you have a secret talent? Do you know how to make something really useful? Would you like to teach others?

I was reading No 62 edition of the Permaculture Magazine and found a story in their about a Transition Town group in the UK who have revitalised a much-loved eighteenth century annual event - the Montpelier Bean Feast to celebrate local hertiage, local harvest and local genius.

Maybe Eudlo could create a special annual event to celebrate local harvests and heritage?

Hopefully the weather will clear up by next weekend and WOEIE will be a huge success and then it stays clear for the markets the following week - fingers crossed.

Cheers,
Sonya Wallace
Transition Town Eudlo
Coordinator

Seedy Sunday success

Our first Seedy Sunday was yesterday - and it was a great success.

Anne organised equipment and seeds and explained how best to process the seeds for saving



Everyone enjoyed it, sitting around the table chatting and bagging up the seeds.



We also found we had two people who work in health who are interested in starting the Eudlo Health Hub - early days yet, but they had some great ideas on how to get started.



Also, a couple of Eudlo diary dates - the WOEIE Festival (Where On Earth Is Eudlo?) is on at the school grounds on Saturday March 20 from noon and the next Eudlo Markets are on Sunday March 28 from 7am.

Our next get together falls on Easter Sunday, so we'll skip that one and move straight to May (can you believe how quickly the year is going?) on May 2nd.

Cheers,
Sonya Wallace
Transition Town Eudlo
Coordinator

March meeting - a Seedy Sunday

Our next meeting - in March - will be our first official Seedy Sunday with our focus being on seed saving.

So if you have any seeds lying around that need to be processed, bring them along and we'll go through them and sort them out together.

The day is all about building important seed saving skills in our community.

Cheers,
Sonya Wallace
Transition Town Eudlo
Coordinator

Feeling Seedy on a Sunday

Following yesterday's get together there definately seems to be enough interest in holding a seed saving day in Eudlo - our first official Seedy Sunday.

It would involve people bringing seed from their own gardens and then we all chip in to get it cleaned, processed, packaged, labelled and then shared among the group.

There will probably be a small fee per person, just to cover the costs of seed envelopes and plastic bags.



If you're interested in coming along and learning by doing - you're more than welcome. Email tteudlo@yahoo.com and I'll add you to the mailing list.

Cheers,
Sonya
Transition Town Eudlo
Coordinator

Seedy Sundays Set to Take Off!

Welcome to Seedy Sundays - an idea shamelessly ripped off from the good people of Transition Towns UK, and it's probably one of the most important things we can do for the future.

Seedy Sundays are when people get together and bring seeds from their gardens, cuttings, plants, produce etc and swap them with each other.

Why is this so important?

Seed saving is probably one of the most important skills you can learn. For many years many of us have relied on buying our organic, non-hybrid open-pollinated seed from places like Green Harvest. But this may be changing in the near future. Now lots more people are wanting to grow their own food and they are also now turning to organic seed suppliers for stock.

But if we all keep just buying our seeds without replenishing the capital of our seed banks we will only continue to go into deficit - something we can not afford to do.

So being able to seed save means - we can replenish what we take out of the system, we can continue to support organic seed suppliers and savers and even help them maintain and increase their stock supplies.

We can grow true to type, heirloom, organic, real food in our own gardens. We can save our seeds and not be beholden to any non-organic (chemical) based seed company who modify their seeds to be infertile so we CAN'T save seeds (they want us to go back year after year to buy their latest varieties - not be self-reliant and grow and save our own).

So we have to get seed saving out their in the community, and it sits perfectly with Transition Towns.

The idea is to promote a time and place where we can all meet and encourage people to bring their seed from their garden, we can sit around and process the seed together then share it back among ourselves. This also increases the genetic diversity of the stock.



What you can do - learn to seed save (there are courses available), seed save at home, then start some type of seed saving group in your community, then link up into the national network of seed saving.

Keep an eye out for the first Eudlo Seedy Sunday event.



Cheers,
Sonya