Green Connect

11/09/2026

🤍 White Icicle Radish Spotlight 🤍

Some of last week's veg boxes featured the beautiful White Icicle Radish 🌱

This heirloom variety has been grown since the 1800s and is loved for its crisp texture and mild peppery flavour. Perfect sliced into salads 🥗, layered in sandwiches 🥪, or enjoyed fresh from the garden 🌿.

We love growing unique seasonal vegetables that connect us to the rich history of food and farming 💚

Did you try the White Icicle Radish? Let us know your favourite way to enjoy it 👇✨

🌱💚

10/09/2026

WE’RE OPEN THIS SATURDAY!

Looking for something special to do this weekend? Come spend your morning at the farm! ☀️

Bring a picnic, bring the kids, bring your favourite people — and enjoy:

🐑 Up-close animal encounters
🌈 Loose parts play
🚜 Farm tours
🤍 A chance to connect with like-minded families

It’s the perfect way to get outside, slow down and make some beautiful weekend memories.

🎟️ Tickets are available now — book your spot and come join us this Saturday!

https://green-connect.com.au/product/play-picnic-days/

09/09/2026

A big thank you to the Macquarie Group Foundation team for spending a corporate volunteering day with us on the farm. 🌱

They started the day with a tour to learn more about Green Connect, the farm and the work we do.

Then it was time to get stuck in.

♻️ Turning compost
🥪 A very well-earned lunch from our local panini shop, which we still maintain makes some of the best sandwiches in Wollongong
🌱 And in the afternoon, digging and preparing beds ready for the next round of planting

It was a great day of hard work, good conversations and plenty of time outdoors.
What made the visit especially meaningful is that Macquarie Foundation is also one of the contributors to the WISE Grant that Green Connect was fortunate to receive.

So, their support goes well beyond one day on the farm. Their contribution is helping us strengthen Green Connect and create more opportunities through the work we do.

There’s something really valuable about having supporters come and experience the farm firsthand, meet the team and see where their support is making a difference.

Thank you to everyone from Macquarie Group Foundation who came along, worked hard and shared the day with us. We really appreciated both your time and your ongoing support. 💚

07/09/2026

🐝 We had a little excitement on the farm last week…

A bee swarm arrived.

If you’ve never seen one before, a swarm can look pretty dramatic. Hundreds or even thousands of bees gather together in a big buzzing cluster while they search for a new place to live.

But swarming is actually a completely natural part of a honey bee colony’s life cycle.

When a hive becomes crowded or conditions are right, the colony may split. The old queen leaves with part of the colony, while the bees left behind raise a new queen.

The swarm then rests temporarily while scout bees search for a suitable new home.

And that’s exactly what happened here.

We were able to carefully capture this swarm and settle them into a new hive on the farm, which is a pretty lovely outcome. 🐝🌼

It’s a good reminder that bees are far more complex than we sometimes realise. A hive isn’t just a collection of individual insects. It’s a highly organised community, constantly responding to its environment and making decisions about what comes next.

For us, it also means one more healthy hive helping pollinate crops and flowers around the farm.

Not a bad way to start spring. 🌱

04/09/2026

Today we’re remembering Wendell Berry — farmer, writer, poet and one of the most influential voices for small farms, local communities and caring for the land.

Berry spent much of his life asking us to think more deeply about the relationship between people, food, farming and place.

He challenged industrial agriculture and the idea that food could ever be separated from the health of the soil, the wellbeing of farmers or the strength of the communities around them.

For those of us working in local food and sustainable agriculture, his words have shaped generations of thinking about what farming can — and should — be.

Perhaps his greatest lesson was a simple one: that caring for a place matters.

Caring for the soil.
Caring for the people who grow our food.
Caring for our neighbours.
And leaving the land in better condition for those who come after us.

Wendell Berry died this week at the age of 92, but the ideas he spent a lifetime writing about feel as important as ever.

We are grateful for the questions he asked, the values he defended and the reminder that agriculture is about much more than producing food.

Vale Wendell Berry. 🌱

1934–2026

03/09/2026

We often get asked, “Is the farm open on the weekend?”

Well… once a month, the answer is YES! 🌿
Join us on Saturday, 12 September for our monthly Farm Picnic Day!

Come along, explore the farm, meet the animals and enjoy a little country-in-the-city time with us. 💚

🎟️ Tickets are available here:
https://green-connect.com.au/product/play-picnic-days/

We’d love to see you there! 🌻

02/09/2026

Where will we be this Friday and Saturday? 👀
SO glad you asked!

🌿 Nature Shake is back at Wollongong Botanic Garden! 🪲💦🌱

We’ll be creekside with our dip nets at the ready, exploring the water and discovering the fascinating little creatures that call the creek home. 🦐

It’s the 3rd year for this wonderful environmental initiative and many thanks to Wollongong Botanic Garden and Wollongong City Council for having us back!

📚 Friday is for schools, however Saturday will be open to the public from 12-4. 💚

See you there!

01/09/2026

🍄 Look what popped up in our compost!

These little mushrooms are a lovely reminder that compost is much more than a pile of old plant material.

It’s a living ecosystem.

Fungi, bacteria, insects and other tiny organisms all help break down organic matter and turn it into something incredibly valuable for the farm: healthy, nutrient-rich compost.

Fungi are especially important decomposers. They help break down tougher materials like wood, stems and leaves, releasing nutrients that can eventually be returned to the soil.

And that’s one of the things we love about composting.

Instead of treating food scraps, plant waste and other organic material as rubbish, we can turn them back into a resource.

Good compost helps us:

🌱 Add organic matter back into the soil
💧 Improve the soil’s ability to hold water
🪱 Support a diverse community of soil life
🌿 Slowly return nutrients to growing plants
♻️ Keep organic material out of landfill

These mushrooms won’t last forever, but beneath the surface the work of decomposition keeps going.

Nature is very good at recycling.

Sometimes our job is simply to give it the right conditions and let it get on with it. 🍄🌱

25/08/2026

🐝 Not all bugs are bad news.

We recently spotted these tiny cocoons on one of our brassica leaves.

They belong to parasitic wasps — and despite the slightly terrifying name, they’re actually very welcome guests on the farm.

Parasitic wasps are beneficial insects. They help control pests naturally by laying their eggs in or on pest insects, which can reduce the need for other forms of pest control.

So when we found these cocoons, we left them exactly where they were.

That’s part of the way we like to farm at Green Connect.

Rather than trying to eliminate every insect we see, we try to understand what role it plays in the ecosystem and work with nature wherever we can.

A healthy farm isn’t a farm without insects.

It’s a farm with balance.

Predators, pollinators, microbes, pests, plants and people are all part of the same system.

Sometimes the best thing a farmer can do is simply recognise when nature is already doing the work for us — and get out of the way. 🌱

25/08/2026

What a great way to look back on A Waste of a Saturday! 💚

We loved seeing the farm full of people learning, sharing ideas and getting hands on with everything from pickling and composting to microgreens and reducing waste.

Days like this only happen because lots of people get involved. A huge thank you to our workshop leaders, panellists, stallholders, volunteers and everyone who came along and made the day what it was.

And thanks to The Illawarra Flame for joining us and sharing the story. 🌱♻️

On August 22, Green Connect opened its farm gate to visitors wanting to learn how to reduce waste