Manager of Mulch, Mick Pettifer and participants, including George Julian, Petey Perez, Tim Cleary and Tully Kohlhagen, work hard to grow produce, maintain the gardens and sell vegetables. Photo: Jarryd Rowley.
Growing veggies, weeding gardens and caring for chickens are all great ways to stay productive while also producing produce that can be eaten or sold.
For the participants at Mulch, it’s a way to learn new skills while also giving them something to care for and nurture.
Located behind the Hedley Beare Centre for Teaching and Learning in Weston Creek, Mulch, a not-for-profit run by Marymead, provides National Disability Insurance Scheme participants the opportunity to grow, care for, and eventually sell vegetables and eggs.
From seed to sale, everything is grown and sold by participants, and with their Spring Sale only a few months away, the team is working harder than ever.
Manager of Mulch, Mick Pettifer, explained that the site has been running for nearly 15 years and has operated from Weston Creek since 2017.
Mr Pettifer said many of Mulch’s 30-plus participants have been attending for several years, with the site giving participants a place to learn hands-on skills and engage with the community.
“There are two routes that NDIS providers can go down, the supported employment route or the social and community activities route,” he said.
“We saw that there’s this sort of gap missing with purposeful activity, where a lot of people with disabilities who don’t meet that benchmark for supported employment still want to be giving back to their communities.
“That’s where Mulch came about. A lot of the participants who come out here see it as work; they wear their high vis out here, they see it as their job, and then they get to go and sell them after working hard to grow all the veggies.
“For them, it’s about being part of something bigger.”
Petey Perez helps sell some of the flowers and vegetables they grow at Mulch. Photo: Mulch.
Petey Perez has been a participant at Mulch for over a decade.
In that time, he has pulled countless weeds, planted thousands of seeds and is now even helping build sections of the site.
“We have been working with cement to put poles in the ground,” Petey said.
“We will put shade cloths over them for some of the plots.”
They’ve mastered the art of pumpkin growing! Photo: Mulch.
Alex, who last year was deemed the ‘weeding wizard’ by the crew at Mulch, said his favourite thing to do was care for the ducks.
“My favourite duck’s name is Goose,” he said.
“I help feed them and look after them three days a week.”
George, another long-time participant, said he enjoys having morning tea, made with the produce they grow at Mulch.
One of George’s favourite jobs is watering and weeding the gardens. Photo: Mulch.
“Sometimes we use the veggies for morning tea, other times we sell them,” he said.
“I’ve learnt how to use the EFTPOS machine and sell them to people who visit.”
For the most part, Mulch is a self-sustainable site, with most of its compost, manure and other miscellaneous items coming from surrounding schools, supermarkets like IGA or sponsors.
However, NDIS funding is needed to ensure that staff who support participants can continue working.
Mr Pettifer said that while the future of the NDIS and how it allocates funding are still up in the air, he hopes others can see the value of continuing Mulch.
“We’re doing purposeful activity that participants and families love,” he said.
“Every day we have people coming down to buy something that we’re selling, and every time the participants light up knowing that they were involved in the process from start to finish, from seed to sale.
“We don’t have a schedule. We aren’t trying to meet quotas. We move at the pace of the participants, and that’s part of the reason why it works so well.”
Mulch can be found at 51 Fremantle Drive, Stirling, with their produce cart open from 9:30 am to 3:30 pm, Monday to Friday.
