Hello! 

Lucille and Pippa here from Strettle Street Market Garden. Thanks for checking out our page and supporting our work.

Strettle Street Market Garden is an urban farm with two locations in Thornbury and Fairfield. Our aim is to provide people in our neighbourhood with weekly boxes of fresh, locally grown vegetables. We believe that there should be more options for people living in an urban area to access and support local agriculture. This is our contribution to the movement to re-localise Melbourne's food system and promote small-scale sustainable farming. We follow organic farming practises and are inspired by permaculture principles and Community Supported Agriculture. 

Strette Street Market Garden started out as a group of friends getting together over a shared concern for the current state of our dominant agricultural system and the impact that it has on the environment, the community and our health. We were all fueled by a desire to make a change, however small, to this system and to gain experience as growers and market gardeners along the way. So we decided to start our own market garden! We were fortunate to have access to two very big local backyards, so we thought 'why not start the market garden in those yards?'

We had a very successful first season growing veggies and selling weekly boxes to 7 households in our community. We were astounded by how many people wanted a weekly veggie box and how well our community received us and celebrated what we were doing.

This revealed the shared ethical and environmental values within our community and a joint desire and need for an alternative to the current agriculture system that dominates where and how we get our food. As our veggies grew, so did our passion for farming. We had a shared excitement that we were not only doing something of value for our community, but that we were part of the much bigger movement towards more environmental and socially-just farming practices. This is why we feel it is so important to do another season of weekly vegetables for our community!

When we first started Strettle Street Market there were nine of us to share the financial responsibility and the time needed to manage the garden. However, nine is now two! As we head into the next season, we are aware that the financial responsibility is greater and we need to consider how we will be able to support ourselves financially whilst committing ourselves full time to the garden. Raising the funds needed for us to be able to go fully prepared into our second season of growing vegetables means we will not have to get ourselves into financial debt and can focus on providing our community with beautiful organic vegetables rather than constantly struggling to make ends meet.

Our vision for the second season of Strettle Street Market Garden is to have a Spring and Summer growing season with 10-15 households receiving our vegetable boxes. We plan to start supplying weekly boxes by October 2019 and delivering until March 2020. We have been spending the winter months preparing the soil by planting a cover crop and meticulously planning for our growing season so that when planting time comes around we are ready to go.

We believe that this project is not only an important contribution to our community but also to the much larger movement towards a more resilient and just food system that respects the land, the farmer and the consumer. We hope that our project will inspire others to start similar initiatives or get out into their gardens and experience the amazing world of growing food in your backyard!

Lastly but most importantly we express our gratitude for Adam, Mitch, Gabe, Gabriel and Sophie who were all part of the creation of Strettle Street. And a very special thank you to Jassy and Ryan who put so much time, love and energy into getting this project off the ground. What a fantastic summer we had together cultivating friendships, knowledge and veggies!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read about our project and coming on this journey with us.

We are hoping to raise $2000

This money will be spent on the following:

• Commercial size scales $150
• Commercial size salad spinner $200
• Harvest tubs $100 - $20 ea x 5
• Wash tubs $20 - $5 ea x 4
• High pressure hose head $40
• Seeds $400
• Joining pieces required to fix irrigation $50
• Re-usable containers for salad mix $50
• Garden fork $50
• Light weight wood to make 10 more boxes (vegetables delivered in wooden boxes that get returned every week and re-used) $50
• Soil to re-build the beds up $140
• Seed raising mix $450
• Fish and seaweed fertilisers $100
• Wheelbarrow $109