What is the Illawarra Edible Garden Trail?

Are you a home gardener or keen to become one? Join the inaugural Illawarra Edible Garden Trail!

The Edible Garden Trail includes all kinds of growing spaces, from raised beds and backyard veggie plots to community gardens and even balcony gardens. The event will provide the opportunity for beginner gardeners to connect with seasoned growers and share tips and insights.

Local gardeners will be opening their gates to allow the general public to wander through and take in their efforts. The gardens vary in size and complexity, from absolute beginners to lifelong green thumbs. Whether you’re keen to pick the brains of the keepers of knowledge or you just want an excuse for a good ol’ sticky beak, the Illawarra Edible Garden Trail is a must.

The idea of the Trail was first started in the Blue Mountains back in 2018. It has since spread to Sydney, and now 2023 marks the first Illawarra event.

Where will the Illawarra Edible Garden Trail take place?

This year, the trail will run from Helensburgh to Woonona, but organisers plan to extend the tour further south to Wollongong in 2024 and to Windang by 2025. It’s a great way for locals to get to know one another and come together over a shared interest in growing our own food.

What’s to love about the edible garden trail?

As well as being a brilliant community event that gets locals connecting with one another, the Trail offers education to those who attend.

In particular, attendees will learn about:

The sustainability and security benefits of backyard food production. The CSIRO has warned that food production from within the Sydney basin could drop from the current 20% to as low as 6% by 2031. This means that if the supply chain was interrupted, fresh food supply could run out in as little as two days. More people growing food from home is a great way to increase an area’s resilience to unexpected food supply issues.
Understanding native foods and increasing diversity of what we consume. With most people eating a very limited range of fruit and vegetables, the Trail offers exposure to lesser-known produce. This includes learning about native foods that have been lost through urbanisation, such as the Illawarra Plum.
The importance of eating seasonally. The Edible Garden Trail will highlight the benefits of seasonal eating – from enjoying fruits and vegetables at their optimum freshness and flavour, to the environmental impact of eating foods that require less transportation and storage when grown out of season.

When is the 2023 Illawarra Edible Garden Trail?

This year’s Trail will take place over the weekend of 11th & 12th November, from 10am to 3pm.

Tickets are now on sale and can be purchased from EventBrite. The tickets include the full weekend, giving you access to all of the participating gardens across the weekend.