Green thumbs rejoice! The Grow It Local Awards, which celebrate creativity and fun in food gardening, are back.
Whether your garden is a backyard, balcony, community patch, school garden or even a windowsill, all gardening enthusiasts are welcome to enter the awards, now in their fourth year.
Grow It Local is an online platform that provides resources about food gardening, as well as access to workshops and live sessions with experts.
Paul West, Grow It Local co-founder, said community interest in growing food had exploded and each year the awards, which were supported by Green Adelaide, were attracting more and more entries from across Australia.
“Collectively, home growers are powerful positive change agents — our awards are a way to celebrate and uplift this great work,” he said.
The categories in this year's awards are:
- Australia's biggest vegetable (last year's winner pictured right)
- Homegrown harvest
- Australia's best chicken name
- Why I love my patch
- Wonkiest vegetable
- Sustainable gardener
- School garden
- Best compost
Entry is open to all Australians who are a registered member of the Grow It Local community, which is free to sign up to.
To enter, members must post a photo on Facebook or Instagram of their entry, tag @growitlocal and use the hashtag #GrowItLocalAwards2024 in their caption, along with the award category they are entering.
Entries close on Sunday 31 March, with winners announced in mid-April.
Judges include Gardening Australia’s Costa Georgiadis, River Cottage's Paul West, permaculture legend Hannah Moloney, world record-holding large veg grower Kevin Fortey, and composting coach and author Kate Flood.
Costa (pictured left) said he looked forward to judging the awards each year.
“Cultivating diversity is central to the Grow It Local vision in our gardens, communities and for the planet too — and these awards really highlight the brilliant positive work of diverse gardeners across Australia,” Costa, a Grow It Local ambassador, said.
The winner of last year's Australia's Best Chicken Name hailed from Adelaide. Sasha entered her chicken Meryl Cheep who took out the title, with notable mention to her siblings Hilary Fluff and Hennifer Aniston (pictured below).
Nat Giffney, Sustainable Urban Communities Officer at Green Adelaide, said joining with Grow It Local and local government partners had engaged more than 7000 local gardeners in the program.
“At Green Adelaide, we recognise the power of growing food to bring communities together, foster daily nature connection and inspire an interest in sustainable living and healthy ecosystems,” she said.
Grow it Local members are also invited to join ABC's Gardening Australia presenter Sophie Thomson, one of the recent recipients of the Inspiring South Australian Women’s Awards, for a live digital workshop on The Wonderful World of Wicking Beds on Thursday, 11 April.
For more information, visit Grow It Local.
