It’s that time of year again – Spring. That means it’s time for our feral foraging foray, ‘Food Underfoot’.
Every year, thousands come to Gawler for a week of wild plant-based festivities. Well..not quite (I’m well known for hyperbole😁). More realistically, up to 15 people gather at Henry Chenoweth Park in Gawler for a couple of hours and, along with me, examine some ecological, cultural, culinary and medicinal facts about some of our most common ‘weeds’. I like to keep the ticket numbers fairly small so that everyone can get up close and personal with the plants.
Food Underfoot has been running since 2017 and has been a popular local event, starting with 2 attendees and peaking at 12! I hope it do better this year – lets book out the whole 15 spots! I do ther weed walks but this one is my pride and joy.
Henry Chenoweth Park is along the South Para River and is located between the Gawler Community House and The Elderly Centre. It’s a large, flat area with easy access, even for folks with mobility issues. There is a paved bike track running through the middle of it and the area large enough for kids and dogs to safely run around. The best part about this park is that it has several different ecotones in its space that contain a large variety of wild edibles and medicinals, all easily accessed.
There are a number of wild edibles that are here every year but the Council do their best to spread them around into different places every season. If you check out the gallery below, you will see a few of the regulars and if one piques your interest, click on the image and it will take you to our page about the plant.
This year’s extravaganza is planned for Sunday, September 14th, at the comfortable time of 11 am. It ‘s 3 weeks after the Gawler Show, so most of the wild plants should have spring back up after their usual mowing and compaction (the park is used for car parking for the show). Many of the herbs are untouched around the edges where the mowers can’t reach and show attendees are not interested in going.
Some of the regulars that you’ll see there.
Click on the images to see them on this website.
When is it?
Sunday, Sept 14th, at the comfortable time of 11 am, so we can all have a lay in but still finish early enough to have a coffee, lunch, or go shopping.
How do I get there?
Parking
The park is an easy walk from the centre of Gawler. Car parking is readily available, the Elderly Centre is usually empty on Sundays and there are a lot of empty parking spaces along Scheibener Terrace.
Here’s where to book your tickets –
We offer a sliding scale of ticket prices. For transparency I like to get $30 for my 2 hours + of information and inspiration but realise that not everyone is cashed up and some are doing it tough. That’s why we have the $20 tier to help out. There is also a $50 tier, which has proven very popular in past workshops. By buying a $50 ticket, the purchaser is helping someone come along on a lower price tier and helps us keep one of our free spots open. Free spots have already been filled for this event.
Kids and dogs come for free!
The cash option
We know that some folks like cash, and so do we! If you’d like to pay cash on the day, please message me via this website’s contact page and we’ll arrange something. If you do this, please make sure you attend on the day as your spot will be taken from the 15 tickets and if you don’t come, someone else could miss out.
Subscriptions
You can also access one of our workshops or field trips for free is you sign up for a paid subscription to this website. We like to get $6 per month for the subscriptions but as we have a strong belief in mutual aid and such things, you can subscribe for any amount over $2/ month (any less and it starts to get chewed up in fees). Your subscription helps keep this website free for everyone by paying for the web hosting and domain name fees.
To say thanks, subscribers get a free entry to one of our events, an irregular seasonal newsletter with socially active herb and gardening information and access to our online folder of downloadable pdfs and workshop notes.
If that entices you, subscribe here –
Other herb pages on Ligaya Garden
We cover a lot of ground on many herb related topics here on our website. There are whole pages devoted to different topics as well as frequent posts. Some of the links are –
