ErinEarth garden manager and the brainchild behind the Riverina Harvest Festival, Eltan Mestan. Photo: Shri Gayathirie Rajen.
The preparations for the region’s inaugural harvest festival are well underway.
The two-day Riverina Harvest Festival in March aims to connect people and promote food security by celebrating locally grown produce and supporting community gardens and producers.
Despite feeling slightly overwhelmed by the remaining preparations, ErinEarth garden manager and festival organiser Eltan Mestan is hopeful and excited about the festival’s potential impact on the community.
“I’m positive but stressed. As it gets closer, more things pop up that I never thought of, or things we have to organise,” Eltan said.
“I am stressed, I’m not going to lie, but it’s moving forward. I see it’s going to happen.
“We’ve got all of our headline speakers locked in. The keynote speaker is Clarence Slockee from Gardening Australia.”
The first day will feature a ticketed conference with multiple speakers, including Charles Sturt University senior lecturer Dr John Rafferty, the president of Community Gardens Australia, and representatives from local producer groups.
The conference will cover topics related to local food, community gardening, and sustainable agriculture. It will be followed by a networking dinner at Mates Gully to connect with fellow growers, producers, and community organisations.
Day two of the festival will feature free workshops for adults and children. The workshops will be on edible natives, advertising your community garden, and edible perennials.
The kids’ workshops will be on healthy soils, native art, seed propagation and pollinators. However, one of the sessions requires a fee and early booking.
Rick Storrier from Ten Thousand Harvests, a local mushroom and microgreens grower, will lead a workshop on how to inoculate logs with mushroom spores. Workshop attendees can then take home the log to grow their mushrooms at home.
The festival will feature eight musicians, various producers and artists, and up to 35 stalls, including hot-food vendors.
Eltan and other organisers are exploring the possibility of offering a farm tour after the festival.
“I have a couple of people working on that … thinking of taking names, numbers and addresses of people who would be interested in visiting the community gardens around Wagga and producers,” Eltan said.
“We will put them on a bus and take them around afterwards to make that connection.
“It’s something that we’re hoping to branch off from the festival. I’m not sure what’s going to happen with the momentum from the festival, but we’re going to try and continue it somehow.”
Riverina Harvest Festival Speakers
- Jackie Price, facilitator – Yield lot 7, and Little Bush Kitchen
- Naomi Lacey, Community Gardens Australia
- John Rafferty, lecturer, CSU Thagona campus
- Colette Geier, CSU researcher, and lecturer
- Marty Bushby, Whole Picture Permaculture
- Joshua Collings, Acres and Acres Co-op
- Deb Robertson, Batlow Tumbarumba Horticulture Growers
- Bindi Vanzella
- Sarah Kynaston
- Laura Fraumeni
- Douglas Rand.
The Riverina Harvest Festival is set to take place from 1-2 March.
Day one will feature a conference at Wagga Wagga City Council from 12:30 pm to 6:30 pm.
The networking dinner at Mates Gully will be from 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm. Click here to buy tickets for the conference and dinner.
Day two is the free festival at Riverside Precinct from 10 am to 4 pm.
Follow the Riverina Harvest Festival on Facebook to keep up with event updates. You can also keep an eye on the Facebook event page.
To get involved in the festival, contact Eltan at [email protected] or on 0439 702 384.
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