For the last few days the whole VEG team has been running a stall down in Federation Square at the Sustainable Living Festival.  It was a lot of fun and great to see many friends and past customers with reports of how their various gardens are growing (can’t go wrong this summer – many people saying they no longer have a garden or orchard but a forest on their hands!).  Here are a few pics from the event along with a little movie.

Our mate Costa stopped in and helped test out a VEG chook tractor.  Note also VEG’s mascot (and Lex’s partner in crime) Sassy the dog – she was a huge hit and we’re thinking of offering her a position as marketing manager!  We met Costa a few years back when he was filming his first series and we worked together on a backyard makeover in Malvern.  Since then he’s become something of a national celebrity – but hasn’t lost an ounce of his lovely down-to-earth nature.  He also does a lot better of a chook impersonation than Adam or Dan…

There were a few light showers early on Sunday – here’s the team taking refuge including David Holmgren and his partner Su Dennet who filled us in on what’s been happening up in their (Hepburn/Daylesford) neck of the woods with this seasons’ super-high rainfall (such as tomatoes getting water logged on free-draining red volcanic soil which is a first).  From left-to-right: Kate our amazing office manager, Kim our past customer become great friend, Clive (Kim’s other half – see below), Su, Gabe (a woofer with Su & Dave), our friend Charlie from permablitz, Adam and Dave.

Clive was our very first design customer in Melbourne and with his wife Kim now has an abundant 1000-square-metre permaculture backyard outproducing any other suburban residence we know of.  Kim and Clive kindly volunteered some time at the stall and here Clive is explaining how the Veg Chook Tractor works to passers by.  Thanks for all your support guys and also a big thanks to Lex – unfortunately we didn’t get a photo but Lex and Sas (who is in the first photo above) have worked with us and supported us for a long time and his drive and positivity make it hard to go wrong!

Dan trying an aggressive new marketing strategy while Adam stands by (no it didn’t work at all but was fun at the time)…

Adam giving a talk on the Power of Chook in the suburbs in the shade of a tree.

And here’s a little movie of the stall – it worked well so maybe we’ll use this for a reminder of what we did for next year