A short history of Creative Harvest

Creative Harvest turns seven in 2024. Like any well-raised six-year-old, it’s got busy making its mark in the wider world.

Nurtured by a community dedicated to living lightly on our precious planet, Creative Harvest is evolving as an open edible garden event. We’ve added workshops and activities for kids, and our social media following is flourishing. Over 1300 food gardening fans subscribe to our newsletter.

The brainchild of the Baw Baw Sustainability Network

This celebration of earth-inspired creativity is the brainchild of the Baw Baw Sustainability Network (BBSN). Green-fingered BBSN members had been entering their flower and food gardens in the annual October Gardivalia Festival of Gardens since 2010.

When Gardivalia didn’t happen in 2017, BBSN’s Food Gardens Committee decided to launch their own event in 2018. They planned it for January, when food gardens are bursting with summer produce. And they invited local artists to showcase their work in sunny, splendid garden settings.

‘Creative Harvest – there’s an artist in my food garden’ was born.

Since 2018 the event has grown faster than a sprouting snow pea. Creative Harvest has evolved, but it’s still grounded by its founding BBSN values.

Championing sustainability and connecting community

Creative Harvest has its grassroots in BBSN members’ desire to share what they know and love about producing abundant, delicious home-grown food.

Now it’s a vibrant, buzzworthy entry on Gippsland’s event calendar. In 2021 over 650 Victorians came to learn more about growing their own food while enjoying a weekend getaway exploring West Gippsland. In 2022 over 1,000 visitors flocked to our gardens.

In 2023, 1169 curious edible garden explorers arrived for the weekend. And our social media followers and newsletter subscriptions now number in the thousands.

Questions get answered, mysteries get solved

One-on-one conversations with gardeners and creatives are the lifeblood of Creative Harvest. Questions get answered, mysteries get solved. Gardeners share their top tips for growing healthy, happy, sustainable food crops in spaces of all shapes and sizes. Creatives, makers, and producers describe and demonstrate how they work and why.

Meet our gardeners

Meet our creatives

Local Goodness

Creative Harvest quenches your thirst for edible gardening knowledge and creative know-how. And because learning is hungry work, we’ve invited a tempting array of Gippsland providers of fine food and coffee to bring their vans to some of our gardens. Besides that, you can buy artisan cheeses, honey, jams, and preserves from producers in several gardens.

When you’ve had your fill of fabulous gardens and their resident creatives, treat yourself to a taste of Gippsland.

Show me great local places to eat

Download the 'Eat. Drink. Gippsland' Guide

Complex times, simple pleasures

Many Creative Harvest visitors talk about living more simply and sustainably in a complicated, uncertain world.

COVID chaos undoubtedly heightened our urge for self-sufficient food security. In 2023, the pandemic-induced rethink that saw us start digging up our backyards and installing window boxes in our apartments has been superseded by a global cost of living crisis. Basic food prices have soared by a devastating 8%, along with the cost of fuel, energy and mortgage interest rates. While these price hikes impact everyone, they’re devastating for thousands of vulnerable Australians and their families.

Here’s what we’ve learned from six successful Creative Harvest edible garden events. Besides wanting to feel the sheer unadulterated joy that comes with eating something you’ve nurtured from seed to salad or plant to plate, loads of us, including growing numbers of young people and families, want to:

Bring family and friends together in the shared space and practice of nurturing a garden, sharing the spoils, enhancing wellbeing, and strengthening connections
Know where our food comes from and how it’s produced – we’re curious and concerned about the entire food chain from farm to plate
Eat delicious seasonal, locally produced, pesticide-free food to support our communities, reduce carbon footprints, cut polluting packaging, and save money
Grow traditional knowledge in skills for making the most of a bountiful harvest – like preserving, pickling, and saving seed. Grow your skills in a Creative Harvest Workshop.
Reduce Australia’s alarming levels of food waste by learning sustainable edible gardening practices like composting, mulching and establishing a worm farm