Sydney Edible Garden Trail offers virtual tours and tips online

The Sydney Edible Garden Trail was to be a two-day event celebrating the many ways that Sydney residents are creating food security, building self-reliance, saving money and the environment, whilst enjoying the health benefits of homegrown fruit and veg. However, with four days to go and 67 gardens registered to open their doors the public, COVID-19 threatened the closure of the event and the team had to make some hard decisions. Should they cancel a project that had been 12 months in the making?

Some quick creative thinking and willpower enabled the team to pivot and go virtual within days before the planned event. They felt it was important to honour the hard work that the garden hosts had gone to to prepare their gardens along with all the effort the volunteer committee had put in. Serendipitously, this now meant that the gardens could be seen by many more people outside the Sydney area using Facebook.

Costa Georgiadis, gardening ambassador extraordinaire, jumped in to assist the Sydney Edible Garden Team by live-streaming from 12 gardens over the opening weekend, hosting more livestreams over the final weekend.

The Virtual Sydney Edible Garden Trail is attracting viewers from around the world, all sharing in the joy of nature using technology. Find the group here: facebook.com/groups. To access the group, tickets can be bought for $5 (plus Eventbrite fee). Ticket holders are able to view the video feeds until June 30. Buy tickets here. Plus, group members can access extra videos on seed saving, hot composting, dehydrating food and more.

“At first we weren’t sure how it would go, but the positive response has been overwhelming,” shares Co-founder, Bridget Kennedy. “With viewers from as far as WA and the USA, going virtual allowed us to expand our reach and respond in a timely manner to people’s increased desire to become more sustainable and grow their own food during these challenging times.”

One hundred per cent of profits will go to building new community and school edible gardens. The team has raised more than $10 000 so far. A number of councils have now jumped on board, purchasing bulk tickets to replace their sustainable event programs that have been cancelled due to COVID-19.

What could’ve been a huge disappointment for garden hosts and ticketholders has turned into an innovative way to share the knowledge and passion of Sydney’s edible gardening community – now farther and wider than before.

sydneyediblegardentrail.com