Our first garden bed

In October the phone rang and it was TAFE Teacher Karen Lenehan. Karen was looking for a garden for her students to work on. She had 4 mornings in which to take the boys through some units of study that where essential to their graduation. It just happened that Narrandera TAFE admin manager Heidi Loggemen had attended our Permaculture workshop and was able to tell Karen about our NFG.

She had found the right place. Karen inspected the gardens and we agreed that we would create a no-dig garden bed in week one, plant it up in week two, then build a Wicking garden in one of our raised corrugated iron beds in week three and plant up in week four. I undertook that these beds would be maintained over the long term by NFG.


Karen describes how the keyhole garden should look.

First you measure out the key hole shape.

Then you start adding layers.

Then you wet it all through and leave it (say a week) to start composting. After a few days it should feel hot if you put a finger down through the mix.  Ours was steaming on plant up day.

 

This should be good to plant up soon.

And the seedlings go in.

More from the Men's Shed team

Well we needed some picnic tables - two for the Community GArdens at the Sandhills Aboriginal Advancement Foundation in Audley Street (which by the way looks fantastic!) and one for the NFG/ the Men's Shed took on the project and with the generosity of Grants Sawmilling created some low cost and very solid tables. I've since heard we have several umbrellas coming out way, thank you to Tammy Galvin and Jim Knagge for these.

We're making great progress. Actually the Men's Shed members are keeping their eyes out for anything that may be useful to us re landscaping or decorating. We have wood blocks and antenae towers already which we can certainly use.

Julie

Pretty good work, I think you'll agree.

Infrastructure away!

The news now is that we have our space fenced and we have negotiated a further 10m  x 17m of the cattle yeards to be fenced after April 2014.

The men from the men's shed have erected our garden shed on the slab, so now we have a place to put our gear.

I've started purchasing our tools, and also some basic materials in bags (so that they are easily moved as we landscape the garden).

A job well done.

Progress

OK everyone,I've re-created the blog so that it has a unique ID unrelated to my personal ID.  That means that others will be able access and manage the blog. It also means the first post which was originally posted in August, now bears a November date. 

It's also worth noting that anyone can email a post to me for moderation and placement on the blog. Just contact me for the unique email adress to use if you'd like to submit a relevant post.

Julie

Let's Get Started

Hi all, Narrandera's Food Garden is coming to Narrandera Showgrounds soon!

We've made a great start with a fabulous workshop on Saturday 3 August led by Permaculture expert Cecelia Macaulay. (Special thanks to Tammy Galvin and family for looking after Cecilia for the weekend) Cecilia unwrapped before our eyes gift after gift. The gifts were insights into just how Permaculture works and how its principles, derived from nature can transform our gardens, our homes and our lives.

We learned practical things we can do, create, and dream-up that will make our garden sustainable, productive and fun.

There'll be loads of waus you can be involved.
You can

• help create the basic structure, yes a little bit of landscaping to be done
• create garden art
• donate garden features and materials (we are working on a wish list) to make the garden funky as well as plant and people friendly
• sponsor the gardens
• contribute gardening tips or great recipes to this blog
• serve on the Food Garden Committee - we only need a small group
• mentor new gardeners
• make friends - not compulsory, but it will happen, watch out!
• share in the creation of the shady sunny, cool, warm, green, worm friendly, people friendly garden

...and garden - compost, plant, water, pick!

We've a great plot of land at the Showgrounds thanks to the Narrandera Showground Trust and we are hot to trot. The area will be fenced in a week or so. The Narrandera Shed for Men has built some raised garden beds from re-cycled corrugated iron for us and they will construct our garden shed as well. Thanks gentlement! I think we'll be great neighbours.

Enough for now. Call me, the Live Well Narrandera Project Officer, Julie Briggs at Narrandera Shire on 02 6959 5510 to get involved.