Trail of food and fun sows seed for garden growth

With the warmer months luring more people outdoors, thoughts are turning to raising plantlife and the rewards of getting fingers in the dirt (with appropriate gloves, of course).  

More than 500 guests visited 30-plus Illawarra gardens on the third annual Edible Garden Trail in late November – the biggest total yet – seeking inspiration about how to begin or expand their own projects. 

Trail coordinator Emily Fowler said the turnout was incredible ''and the vibes were high!” 

“No matter your skill level or how much space you have, there’s options for all, and people willing to help you learn,” Emily said.

Organised by Food Fairness Illawarra, in partnership with Healthy Cities Australia, the trail brought together long-time gardening enthusiasts and budding growers, “sharing knowledge and skills around growing more food at home and encouraging each other to do so.”

Hosts and garden hoppers shared advice, gathered inspiration and shared their thoughts with the Flame.

Karen Charlton and Warren Scott at their Thirroul backyard garden and verge

Karen: “The edible garden trail brings all sorts of people together – those with established gardens and those starting the journey, looking for inspiration. The common thread throughout is that there is an underlying need to increase the nutritional value in what we eat – people are starting to care. What I noticed more this year is there are more questions being asked as to ‘the how’, more than ‘the why’ of past years.

“Previous years, the interest was with individuals garden-hopping, where this year I felt that there were more groups travelling together, which hopefully means edible gardening is becoming a mainstream topic of conversation.

“We were open on the Saturday and took advantage to visit some gardens on the Sunday, which was great. When garden-hopping on day two, I loved that personalities can be seen between growers and their gardens – from the manicured to the shabby chic, voluptuous companion planting to the perfect spacing with a singular purpose of the perfect crunch and the juicy squeeze. That's what will bring us back next year – happy foraging to all.”

Nick Morphew at Waniora Public School garden

“I'm a classroom teacher here and I spend a couple days a week in the garden and cooking with some kids. We harvest food from the garden that's going to be appropriate for that meal for that day, we teach the kids about all the different parts of the plant that we can eat, and we plant things that the kids want. I took over this space about two years ago – the mulberry trees grew massive, the garden beds were too shaded and nothing was growing. When I got the go-ahead, I pulled out all the garden beds and put it all together again.

“It’s a place where they can explore and enjoy the space as their own. It’s great having beautiful-looking plants, but I like the ones that are attacked by all the bugs and the caterpillars. The kids love finding all the mini-beasts. We talk about natural selection, how the caterpillars that blend in the most are less likely to be eaten by the birds.

“We've got a scarecrow that we're going to rebuild because he's getting real tired! The kids get excited about that cyclical nature, and it ties into everything here being very seasonal. They still get to enjoy the animals because we have all the birds around and a massive blue-tongue lizard. I let them ask the questions, I try not to talk at them.”

Ray and Jill at Lisa & Brian Wellings’ Fairy Meadow backyard garden

Ray: "The diversity here is great – there's a lot of different things around. It's amazing. One thing that stood out to me was that some people have all the plants pushed in together. I was used to spacing them out, but now I see, 'Wow, I can get more plants in there!' Our space at home is small, so we need to use as much of it as we can, and I think the ideas we're getting from here are showing us, 'Yep, we can do it.'"

Jill: "We've been monitoring the edible trail and we saw it last year but didn't know about it, so trying it out today is great. We're talking to the gardeners and hearing what they've done and how they planned the garden, which is beautiful. We're going to extend our verge garden at home – we've got a small one. We've seen somebody's here and thought, 'Hey, wait a minute, we could do this' even with the restrictions on height and distance from the curb."

To stay in the garden trail loop in 2026, sign up for Healthy Cities' monthly newsletter or email Emily on gardentrail@foodfairnessillawarra.org.au