Collingwood ChildrenS Farm
Websites in Yarra

Melbourne's favourite city farm the collingwood children's farm is the only place in the city where children can get a close experience with real farm animals. You can help milk the cows at 10am and 4pm everyday. Cows, guinea pigs, cats, chickens, ducks, peacocks, geese, sheep, goats, pigs, horses, bees and earthworms - quite a selection. Check the website for more info.

Only 5km from the center of Melbourne and nestled on a bend of the Yarra River lies seven hectares of paddocks, gardens, orchards, rustic buildings and shady trees. The Jerri and Dare bin Creeks reestablished their flows across the basalt (cooled lava) but the Yarra River was blocked, creating a lake and floodplain upstream of Jew. The outflow of the lake cut through the mud stone, following the edges of the basalt 'fingers'. This created cliffs in the mud stone and gave the river its present winding course. The river carried rich silts from the erosion of the mud stones and the basalt plains. kinks, geckos, lizards, copperhead snakes and frogs shelter among st the ground cover, which includes ingenious tussock grass. Water rats and the occasional platypus live in deep water at the foot of the steep cliffs. The Kulin nation held corroborees nearby, exchanging goods and conducting ceremonies such as marriages. Their menu included local game, fish and plant tubers. The Jerri Creek and Yarra River junction is calm an important area for Indigenous people it is a traditional burial ground, and close the junction an Aboriginal school and mission operated for a brief time. The nuns selected an distant place that could house and feed many people. Over the years a convent, chapel, asylum, industrial school, reformatory and day school were built to accommodate the nuns, novices, penitents and children. The massive Convent provided shelter for orphans, the infirm and the sick. Because of the risk of flooding, the river flats were only used to graze cattle and grow lucerne and maize. In 1979, a community committee, with support from the previous Collingwood City Council, leased a insignificant area of the Convent for a Children's Farm. Local schools and other groups helped with fencing, gardening and animal care. Since the 1980s, State and Local governments have funded some of the Farm's costs. The water from the duck pond flows beginning into a empty lined with reeds that filter the nutrients. The manure from these birds is quickly taken up by the plants growing lower the trees. In the times of the Convent, the layout of the Farm was different. Today we have fewer animals and concentrate on vegetable and fruit crops, as healthy as growing food for our animals. Today, farmers and community groups plant trees on riverbanks and in plots to bear habitat for insects, birds and other wildlife. There is enough of work at the Farm for lots of people. Volunteers, staff and young people work together to maintain the Farm.