On Tuesday 23rd March a group of 15 local Chinese migrants came to visit the Community Gardens, and what a day that was.

Sponsored by the City of Whitehorse, the group originally invited us to a Zoom meeting with their leader, Elisa, translating. Dawn and Margaret talked about the gardens, described them, what we did there and also spoke about growing various vegetables. They were keen to come and see for themselves, and arranged a visit, although many did not have their own transport. Bus and train timetables were checked, and right on time, they arrived to fine weather. Rain had been forecast but luckily it held off until well after they left.

Deanna and Yuen were organised to help with translating, and Mary volunteered to organise a COVID safe afternoon tea for them.

I can say we all had a most enjoyable time over a couple of hours, much longer than the planned visit of one hour, as we all wanted to keep going. There were lots of questions about the gardens, learning the English names for vegetables (some of which were completely unknown to them), and questions on how to grow them.  Lots of photos were taken too, with phones used to look up English names and then translated to Chinese. Some of them expressed a keen interest in going on our waiting list.

At the end of the visit, after refreshments, they all thanked us profusely, with smiles all around. One of the men, on behalf of the whole group, sang a beautiful and expressive song of thanks for our hospitality, and what a wonderful resonating voice he had too. It was just a pity that only a couple of other plot owners were around at that time to hear it.

I know our Jolimont helpers will remember that day for a long time…… it is what we are all about, community friendliness and co-operation.

Margaret