Orchards, geese and lots of inspiration ... just some of what those taking part in the Edible Garden Trail experienced.
The 2022 Blue Mountains Edible Garden Trail was the talk of town amongst gardening folk over the weekend of October 15-16.
From Glenbrook to Mount Tomah, 41 edible gardens opened their gates to welcome about 500 gardeners, experienced and emerging, into their backyards.
The collection of gardens was diverse with six community and social enterprise gardens, seven school kitchen gardens, at least three market gardens, a botanical garden, a couple of farms, and an abundance of suburban backyard growers.
The event is presented by the Blue Mountains Food Co-op in Katoomba. The Co-Op also opened their new Urban Market Garden in Katoomba as a demonstration garden and working farm for the first time on the trail.
The two-day event is held annually, but COVID and bad weather has seen the event postponed twice in the last year-and-a-half. It first took place in 2018.
The Edible Garden Trail is a knowledge and inspiration sharing weekend. This year the emerging theme was adaptability.
Costa Georgiadis from Gardening Australia visited the Blue Mountains last week to preview the trail and was taken aback with how gardeners were showing impressive adaptability, ingenuity and resilience with water levies, 'Greco-Roman drains", channels and water redirection, crop protection, crop variation and many other adaptations in response to the onslaught of weather events in recent years.
Project manager, Elisa McTaggart said overall, the general feeling had been one of inspiration.
"Inspired and inspiring would have to be the two words most-heard on the trail," Ms McTaggart said.
"Trail-goers were in awe of the gardeners and sparked by their knowledge and seeing what is possible, and gardeners revelled in hosting and sharing conversations with visitors who adored and appreciated edible gardening."
Adele and Dave Sharman opened their edible garden in Linden for the first time and were thrilled by the response.
"Twenty five groups visited us, all really great people who love gardening ... we chatted about: making do, organic garden practices and loving the place you are in, for most of the day. Pretty top way to spend a Saturday," Mrs Sharman said.
The Trail is not possible without the patronage of the Blue Mountains Food Co-op and the gardeners who generously volunteer their time and energy to open their gardens.
Part of the event saw the new walking trail opened up at Leura Public School.
