A pandemic-renewed passion for growing their own vegetables has led sisters Emma and Sally Handford down the garden path and into the Federation TAFE classroom to study horticulture.
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Emma, 34, and Sally, 39, were sick of their office jobs and wanted to work outside and came to a joint decision to both study the free Certificate III in Horticulture course.
"We decided early last year that we didn't want to work in an office any more, that we really just wanted to get outside in nature," Emma said.
"We've always done a veggie garden and really got into it during the pandemic. With the fruit and vegetable shortages and the wild weather we turned to growing a lot of our own, and decided even if we didn't pursue a horticulture career, doing the course would only benefit us at home anyway."
The sisters and their classmates have created a sustainable garden for the Ballarat Begonia Festival to highlight Federation TAFE's horticulture, early childhood education, building and construction, and engineering courses.
The sisters signed up for the mid-year intake for the state government funded free TAFE course and planning works for the Begonia Festival garden began almost straight away, culminating in the students installing the garden at the Ballarat Botanic Gardens on Thursday ahead of the long weekend.
"We planted everything from seed last year in anticipation of what we would need to grow over the summer," Emma said.
The garden features many edible plants, keeping with the sustainability theme of the festival, and future horticulture students can reuse everything else which can be kept in Federation TAFE's greenhouse or planted out.
"We've tied the garden in with the whole of Federation TAFE," Emma said. "We've got a cubby house from building and construction which we've turned into a garden shed with kids items to tie in with early childhood and education, and we've got a weather vane and pot belly stove from engineering."
It's been a big effort for both sisters, who each have three children, to return to study while juggling work, study and family.
With the end of their course looming mid-year, the sisters are deciding what comes next.
"I was at a stage where I got made redundant in the office work I was doing and was thinking I wanted to do something for myself after having kids," Sally said. "I didn't like the idea of paying for uni or TAFE because I wasn't 100 per cent sure what I wanted to do but I wanted to dabble in horticulture because I love being outdoors and was sick of being inside," she said.
They are now considering starting a horticulture-related business together once their course ends.
Don't miss these highlights of the Ballarat Begonia Festival
Tim The flowers are the true stars of the Ballarat Begonia Festival but the festival program promises highlights aplenty for everyone.
The Ballarat Botanic Gardens will be a sea of colour across the weekend with brightly packed flower beds, market stalls, display gardens and various creations to wander through, but the stars of the show will be found inside the Robert Clark Conservatory which is billed as the House of One Thousand Begonias.
The Greenhouse Ballarat Stage will host a mix of music, performance, talks, education sessions and cooking demonstrations.
Familiar faces on the stage include Ballarat toastie king Tim Bone, chef Mark Olive, gardener Jerry Coleby-Williams, and landscape architect Natasha Morgan.
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Begonia visitors won't be able to miss Bloom!, featuring the aerial antics of three skilled performers atop Sway's eye-catching 15-foot sway poles as then explore individuality, diversity, transformation and community during a 20-minute performance.
Children will have the chance to get their hands dirty at the Ballarat Begonia Festival, as Ballarat Botanikids transform the North Gardens' Gatekeeper's Cottage into an activity centre.
The rear of the cottage will have a nature table display and digital microscopes - allowing the children to get a view of a wide array of plant life under the scope
The ever-popular Ballarat Farmers Market will also be part of the festival, with extended hours and more than 90 stalls set up in North Gardens Reserve from 9am to 5pm on Saturday, and more than 55 stalls on Sunday to browse through.
The PowerFM Begonia Festival parade, which every year attracts thousands of people, will run along Wendouree Parade to North Gardens from 11am Monday.
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