Eating fresh, seasonal food produced locally drastically reduces ‘food miles’ and carbon emissions, so growing your own, community gardening, and seeking local producers via farmer’s markets and roadside stalls are all significant steps towards sustainability.

Adelaide Hills Farmers Market operates every Saturday, 8.00am – 12 noon, at the TAFE car park, 3 Dumas St, Mt Barker (closed on catastrophic fire rated days). This is a ‘food only’ market. For more information see www.adelaidehillsfarmersmarket.org.au

Adelaide Hills Community Garden is located behind the Verdun Uniting Church, Onkaparinga Valley Road, Verdun.  This new Garden aims to demonstrate waterwise, organic, biodynamic and permacultural food gardening. Planning meetings are held fortnightly. All welcome. See www.facebook.com/adelaidehillscommunitygarden

Aldgate Food Co-op meets 10.30-12.00  each Friday at the Aldgate Valley Community Hall, Nation Ridge Road, Aldgate. (Closed on catastrophic fire rated days) It has been trading for around ten years.

Organic, gluten free and whole foods are available and members swap or sell homegrown produce. New members are welcome. The co-op is also seeking local suppliers of spray-free and organic produce.

Duck Flat Community Garden in Mount Barker is an initiative of the Adelaide Hills Community Health Service and is a project where it’s many allied health professionals collaborate with the community.

The garden is supported by over forty volunteers, including artists and “foodies” working with dieticians as well as gardeners, and a part time coordinator. It is a beautiful space for teaching and demonstrating food growing using co-operative, collaborative, healthy organic principles. Produce is distributed mainly to volunteers and to the hospital kitchen.

There are over thirty-five vegetable beds. Some are raised over a metre for people who cannot bend, and others lower for those who need to sit. There are seats, wheel accessible pathways, a hot/shade house, a pizza oven and meeting place, dragon seats, native shelter belt, fruit trees, a comprehensive composting system, activity shed, various artworks, a children’s garden  and a ‘playboat’ on a wooden jetty.

The garden welcomes everyone to a centre for and of health and wellbeing. It is located behind Mount Barker DSM Hospital (Wellington Road). If arriving by car best parking is in Deer Avenue. For further information contact Tess Minett – Coordinator, Duck Flat Community Garden – Mondays and Wednesday on 8393 1727

Transition Adelaide Hills (TAH)  is part of a worldwide network of Transition intitiatives. In the face of challenges from climate change and peak oil, TAH aims to help our region move towards a more resilient and sustainable future. Meetings are held monthly.

See http://www.transitionetwork/initiatives/adelaide-hills   

Adelaide Hills Natural Resource Centre is a community based information centre that promotes sustainable land management and environmental awareness, and offers information and advice on a broad range of natural resource management issues. It’s run by volunteers and also has several technical staff on site and a part time coordinator.

The centre runs workshops, seminars and field trips to support community need. Forums and seminars held since opening in 2004 include “Sustainable Homes” and “Climate Change”. The centre is located at 1 Crescent Drive, Norton Summit and is open Mon-Fri, 9-5. The coordinator is Val Hunt, ph 83901891 (Tues – Thurs) or valhunt [at] ahnrc.org.

Mt Pleasant Natural Resource Centre Inc. is a non-profit, volunteer based community hub that promotes sustainable living and meaningful environmental connection. It provides information on environmental, sustainable and natural resource management, training, advisory services and community natural resource monitoring within the northern and eastern Adelaide Hills as well as the Barossa Valley and Murray Plains region.

The centre is currently developing a large sustainable living demonstration area. It’s located at 132 Melrose Street, Mount Pleasant and is open Mon-Fri, 9-12.30, 1.30-5. Phone 08 85681907

Earth Hour 2011 was 8.30-9.30 Saturday, March 26. At that time, people in Australia and around the world turned off their lights, sending a powerful message of what is possible if we act together. In the Hills four restaurants hosted candlelit dinners; the Scenic Hotel at Norton Summit, The Mustard Seed Restaurant in Hahndorf, Wallis Tavern in Mt Barker and Lobethal BierHaus.

Earth Hour is a symbolic action that demonstrates the power of community -- in coming together we really can change things for the better. It raises awareness in a way that has reached hundreds of millions of people in just a few years, it gives heart to people's efforts to reduce carbon and it even helps show that, with a little creativity, living with less can be achievable and enjoyable.

Congratulations to Hills residents Burr Dodd and Lolo Houbien as recipients of the 2011 Earth Hour Lifetime Achievers Award for their roles in establishing Trees for Life in SA in 1981.

Windmill Hill Salvage and Save (known to locals as Mt Barker Dump). The salvage yards run by Finding Workable Solutions (FWS) offer a wide range of secondhand electrical goods (tested and tagged), furniture, building materials, white goods, garden equipment, bric-a-brac and bagged firewood. FWS is a not for profit organisation based in rural S.A., committed to assisting people with a disability to find and maintain employment in the community. Donations of all quality salvageable items are welcome. Located next to Windmill Hill Transfer Station, Nixon Rd, Totness (off Mt Barker Rd between Mt Barker and Hahndorf) Ph 08 8388 1837

Hills Country Markets

A variety of country markets sell local produce as well as other goods. Markets operating weekly are:

• Macclesfield Village Market, every Sunday 9.30 – 3 pm
• Uraidla: Hills Producers Market every Sunday November to April, then 1st Sunday May to October 10 – 4 pm
• Lobethal:  Adelaide Hills Market Lobethal, Saturday, Sundays and public holidays 10 – 4 pm

Monthly markets operate on regular days in the month;

• Echunga:  1st Saturday & every Sunday in January, 7.30 – 12 noon
• Gumeracha:  3rd Sunday, 10 – 4 pm
• Hahndorf: 4th Saturday, 8.30 – 1 pm
• Littlehampton: 2nd Saturday (not Jan), 8 – 12.30 –pm
• Meadows: 2nd Sunday, 9 – 3pm
• Mylor: 1st Sunday, 9 – 3 pm
• Stirling:  4th Sunday, 9 – 4 pm
• Wistow: 3rd Saturday, 8 – 1pm Sep – May (9 – 1pm in winter)
• Woodside:  1st Sunday, 7 – 12.30pm