Husband and wife team Val and Leo Ryan will pass on their considerable skills at a jams and preserves workshop.

The demonstration will begin at 10am at the community garden site with both theory and practical aspects of preserve making on display. “I am going to make some blood plum jam and Leo will talk about food processing,” Mrs Ryan said.

“I have been making preserves pretty much all my life. I learnt as a child off my mother and so did Leo.

“We used to live on the land in Allansford and we had all kinds of fruit trees.

“We had three teenage children with bottomless pits (for stomachs) so I just kept churning out the preserves to keep them going.

“It is a good skill to have and one we are looking forward to helping to share with other people.”

The workshop is a another positive step in the progress being made by the Warrnambool Community Garden group.

The group has 80 members who help tend to 54 plots at the Eddington Street site.

Next Saturday afternoon the community garden group will host a sustainability forum which will include an expert panel.

The panel will include horticulturalist and sustainable landscape designer Donna Ellis, horticulturalist and sustainability educator Andrew Gray and organic farmer Robert Rowley.

Regular activities of the group include worm farming, working bees, monthly cook and share lunches and a weekly communal gardening activity.

Garden convener Geoff Rollinson is pleased that the garden space, membership levels and activities are thriving.

“We are literally in a good place,” Mr Rollinson said.