Thursday 12 April 2018

Costa at the Show

Most Aussies would be familiar with the name 'Costa' when they hear it mentioned. For overseas readers, Costa Georgiadis is a popular presenter on the equally popular TV program 'Gardening Australia' and he is often a guest speaker at various gardening events around the country.  He is currently in our city for a few days to speak at our Toowoomba Royal Show so a friend and I headed out to the showgrounds for his presentation.


 He is a very enthusiastic person and loved getting the children involved. He spoke about the benefits of growing your own veggies and also asked if anyone had heard about the 'Draft review of import conditions for brassicaceous crop seeds for sowing into Australia'. Nobody had so he suggested we read about it as submissions to the government have to be in by 19th April.You might like to read his post on the availability of organic seeds in the future and have your say before it is too late.  It is a bit scary!

 


I believe those plants in the background were only planted five weeks ago and were fertilised with Earthlife products hence the extremely vigorous growth. It seems that they are based here in Toowoomba but do take online orders. I had never heard of them before so it is good to know what is available locally. 



After Costa had finished his first gardening presentation then off he went to the kitchen where his off-sider had been preparing some spinach, feta chees and filo pastry to make up something similar to Hortopita which Paul West cooked recently on Gardening Australia.


 


While Costa was talking and his off-sider was cooking, one of the ladies in the audience mentioned that there was a frog in the ladies' toilets as Costa had previously been talking about having frogs in the garden.




Another lady went off to the toilet and brought it back to Costa and showed him how to identify a girl frog. 

Apparently the show organisers didn't want the frog to go back into the toilets....understandably....




....so after a photo....




...and a quick pretend kiss from Costa the little frog was taken to the lake on the showgrounds to spend the day. Costa  had us in fits of laughter! Then off he went to do another gardening presentation.




By this time he was running behind schedule as Paul West from River Cottage Australia  was waiting to start cooking. Firstly Paul found that the avocados that had been brought for him to use were rock hard so it took quite some time to prepare them. Obviously whoever bought them wasn't a cook :-)




He made a sort of guacamole and had some steak in marinade but when he went to cook the steak I think his off-sider had put the frying pan on the heat and forgotten about it because when Paul poured in the oil to begin cooking the pan went on fire!!! He got that out and then it went on fire again so in the end he smothered it with a tea towel! I kept waiting for that tea towel to go on fire but thankfully it didn't but you can see how it ended up in the photo. It wasn't a good start for him with his first presentation of the show but he really enjoyed himself and had lots of laughs.  Paul is now a guest presenter on Gardening Australia.




We had lunch and then wandered around the showgrounds. We came across some ladies cooking and found that they were part of the Mulberry Project which I had never heard off before.  I had a chat to one of the ladies there and it turned out she was Louise Noble, the founder of the Mulberry Project. Louise explains more about the project in the video Stories for Gathering, Healing and Learning Together: Louise Noble.



I picked up one of their brochures and I am sure Louise wouldn't mind me copying some of the contents here:

The Mulberry Project is a pilot social enterprise based in the Toowoomba Region in Queensland enabling social and economic inclusion through Fair Food production.

We transform underutilised farmland into market gardens to create pathways to training and meaningful employment in the farming and food sectors for disadvantaged communities. Our dream is to rethink settlement by developing a model for social and economic inclusion through sustainable food production across the country.

Email: the mulberry project4360@gmail.com

If anyone in our region would like to help The Mulberry Project they welcome sponsors and tax deductible donations to assist in the upscale of their operations:

  • Bore drilling and irrigation equipment
  • Small machinery and hand tools
  • Soil and water testing and farm planning studies
  • Shedding, refrigeration and packing supplies
  • Fertilisers, mulches, seed raising medium
  • PPE-boots, shirts, hats and gloves
  •  
I think this is an amazing organisation and it is so good to see many of our migrants meeting together and growing food.



This is one of the dahlias that won a prize in the floral section. We actually have this one growing in our garden too as well as the yellow won that won the Grand Champion prize. Perhaps we should have entered our dahlias :-)

It was all very tiring so we decided we had had enough for the day and wandered off to find where on earth we had parked our cars. I knew I had parked mine under a tree but didn't realise there were so many rows of trees until I tried to find my car. Eventually it appeared amongst the hundreds of cars there and I headed for home in time for a Nanna nap. Ha ha!








19 comments:

  1. At our show Costa facilitated a discussion about commercial food waste from when it leaves the farm till it gets to our shelves - I was blown away to say the least.

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  2. What a fantastic speaker to have at your show, Chel. Gardening Australia is my favourite tv show and Costa is so inspiring. His enthusiasm for nature, the envrionment, growing food and community is infectious! I met him once and I love that he is exactly the same in person as he is on tv. Just full of energy and enthusiasm. Jerry Colby-Williams also had something up on his blog recently (link via sidebar on Chris' Gully Grove blog) to do with seed so I will be going back to both to have a good read. The mulberry project sounds like such a worthwhile social enterprise. I am looking forward to reading more about it because I think gardening and growing food means so much and can be a way for others to find their place in a new country. Meg:)

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    1. Chel, I read what Costa had to say about the seed importation review and then I tried to make a submission to the relevant government department. It took ages and when I finally got to the end of that process, it wouldn't submit. I had to redo it. Double groan! They don't make it easy to comment on this issue. Meg:/

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  3. Meg I haven't tried as yet. What a shame it is so hard to make a submission. If I was on Facebook I would let Costa know that on his Facebook page but he might already be aware of that as he wasn't surprised when nobody had heard that submissions were being asked for. I had bettter start saving some more seeds for the future.

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  4. sometimes I wish that i didn't live in such a remote place and could go to these types of shows. we had Costa come to our local gardening show and he actually came and visited my garden! Well, to say I was excited was an understatement! what a thrill - he is a real gem, and now that Paul has joined Gardening Australia my Friday nights are even more special.

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    1. I read about that on your blog and could tell you were excited :-) He is certainly the same in real life as he is on TV.

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  5. I'm hoping to get to the Canberra Permaculture festival where Costa is speaking this weekend. David Holmgren is also launching his new book retrosuburbia - which sounds like a good read. That's interesting (in a concerning way) about the seeds. I'm sure it wont stop with brassicas. Seed saving will be come even more important.

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    1. Laura I thought he was here till today. Perhaps he will be in Canberra tomorrow. Gosh he is a busy man.

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  6. Thank you for great company yesterday, thoroughly enjoyable and inspiring day,
    those gardens were amazing for 5 weeks growth with Vegie Mate . Hope you were able to get your nanna nap ....non event here as a tradie showed up 10 minutes after I got home lol.

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    1. Margaret I was stonkered when I got home and had to have a little lie down :-) No tradies here at the moment thankfully.

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  7. Oh wow, lots of fun! Glad you had such a great time, Chel.

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    1. I enjoyed seeing Costa, Chris. However I thought the showgrounds were looking a little tired and need a revamp but that all costs money of course. I hadn't been out there to see the show since my children were pre-schoolers.

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    2. That's a long while between visits. We went early 2000's for the annual Lifeline bookfest x 2 years in a row, and it was looking pretty "rural" then too. By rural I mean, not many footpaths, paved parking spaces, and very muddy if they had any rain.

      One of the years we went, I got stuck in the mud, driving off the road, to allow someone else to pass. Luckily I had a Suburu station wagon, back then, with 4WD. Got out again. Easy-peasy. But I don't have a 4WD now, lol.

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  8. Did you happen to see the alpacas Chel.....they're up there from my local nursery. I was there this morning and looking for them when I was told they were at the Toowoomba Show. Did get a bag of their manure though for my garden :) what fun to have Costa there, and quite a comedy with Paul and his tea towel. I enjoyed hearing about the Mulberry Project and will read more about it. Glad you managed to have a nap!

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    1. No we didn't see them, Nanette. We were too worn out to look around any more. LOL! Lots of things going on at the showgrounds and you really need to go for a couple of days to see everything.

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  9. Hello there, miss me. I cant look at Costa with out wanting to cut his beard off. I wonder what his face looks like. Imagine kissing him (not that i want to - he probably have half his lunch in there). See - you do miss me.

    I was so disappointed to google Paul's cooking school at RCA only to find a real estate notice that it was for sale last year. I so wanted to visit. It was on my bucket list. Oh Well, i imagine he was as goofy in person as he was on the show.

    I know i've said this before but once i finish my BIG project i will start writing again. Brrrrr its 14 degrees today.

    Cheers
    LyndaD

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    1. Well, look who has resurfaced :-) Of course I have missed you! I have been wondering how your feet are these days and hope you are back to normal once again after the op. Now, what is your BIG project? The temp here today was in the high twenties and much too hot for this time of the year.

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    2. Nope, cant tell you yet, still taking in progress photos and working my arse off after work and on weekends. Lets just say it involves lots of power tools.

      What - you want lettuce in summer months? Fussy.

      Foot is good, after one year the heal is slightly fractured due to a fall in Oct which wasnt addressed until Feb but im walking on two feet in regular boots - Cam Boot came off last week given that my muscles in foot and calves were wasting. No pain and one very straight foot. I havent done any "walks" yet, just doing pool work.

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  10. Looking forward to being able to watch Gardening Australia on a regular basis when we get home. Hoping Costa and Paul might be invited to the Mackay show. Your story is hilarious 😀

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