Joining forces with Landcare

As you may have already seen on our Facebook page - Narrandera Food Garden is joining forces with Narrandera Landcare Group!

We are doing this because both the Food Garden and the Landcare group are small local community groups and have similar interests (Kimberley and Betty have been members of both all along). Given our overlap in interests, the committees of both organisations thought it made sense to work together and share resources and insurance costs for all our volunteers. This will also help us in our efforts to attract funding for workshops, new gardening resources, and guest speakers, as we will no longer be competing against the Landcare group for the same grants.

Joining forces with the Landcare group will also give us the chance to get to know other local volunteers and share our ideas and expertise with each other, which of course is the reason many of us joined the community gardens in the first place!



What does this mean for members?
All paid-up members of the Food Garden are now also members of the Landcare group; from now on your $40 to become a gardener and secure your own plot for the year will likewise cover a year's membership with the Landcare group. This is an inclusive cost - there is no extra fee to cover Landcare membership, it's just the same $40 it's always been.

Does this mean members have to attend Landcare group meetings and activities? 
No. You may attend or not attend Landcare meetings and other events as you please, there is no obligation to go to monthly meetings if you'd rather not, although you will be most welcome if you do choose to go along, the Landcare group are a friendly bunch and would love to meet new people.

What does it mean for the Food Garden and committee?
The Food Garden will continue to operate as usual, with its own committee (now officially a sub-committee of the Landcare group, who will represent the Gardens at Landcare meetings), and we will stick to our plan of having get-togethers and workshops throughout the year. Both organisations will continue to maintain their own Facebook pages and websites/blogs.



In short: Food Garden members are now members of Landcare at no extra cost and are encouraged attend Landcare meetings and events if they so wish, but if you'd rather ignore the whole Landcare side of things you can continue on as normal and nothing will change.

If you'd like to find out more about the Landcare group you can visit their website or Facebook page, or head along to a Landcare meeting (held the 4th Tuesday of every month at 7:30pm at the Ex-Servicemen's Club).

Beneficial Insects in the Narrandera Food Garden

Hi all, Kimberley here. I recently attended a workshop on Beneficial Insects and thought you all might be interested in learning a bit about them too.

Read on to find out why I was excited to see this guy

At the Narrandera Food Garden we are trying to adopt permaculture principles into our gardening practices. Permaculture is all about working with nature to achieve an end goal that is beneficial for all. This means trying to encourage natural pollinators and pest control agents, rather than poisoning our environment, ourselves, and all those ‘good’ bugs (and the things that eat them!) out there by using pesticides and herbicides.

We live in a very chemical-based society, and it’s so easy to get caught up in thinking that we have to use pesticides and herbicides all the time to get rid of weeds and pests. However, this over-reliance on chemical controls has been proven to result in not only the loss of plants, insects and animals that can help us control the ‘bad guys’ but also to create environments that encourage weed growth and pest attacks (invasive weeds are the first to encroach on bare ground after weed spraying, due to the lack of competition; and loss of predatory insects, due to broad-scale pesticide use, can give the pest species that emerge later free reign). Agricultural scientists are also finding that weed and pest species are developing resistances to commonly-used pesticides and herbicides, making them less effective, and forcing chemical control companies to develop ever more potent poisons. The end result of this cycle is a higher and higher reliance on chemical controls as we steadily remove harmless and beneficial species from our gardens and crops, and more and more chemicals going on and into our food, soil, water and air. The only winners in this cycle are the chemical companies.

Narrandera Food Garden Rules

Are you a new member?
Would you like a reminder of the NFG rules?
Did we forget to give you a list of rules when you signed up and you had no idea there were any?
Don't worry, they're not onerous.

Download your own copy here!

*Please note: There is not currently a formal watering roster in place - please check with other gardeners regarding current watering practises.

Get-together March 2nd

Several of our gardeners, committee members and friends got together on Monday evening to enjoy a picnic in the gardens, discuss upcoming plans for the year and swap great tips for both gardening and cooking.

Keep your eyes on this blog and our Facebook page for more information about this year's workshops, working-bees and just-for-fun get-togethers!

Gardeners Get-together March 2nd

Sign-up Day!

Drum-roll please...

The moment you've all been waiting for has arrived!

If you'd like to join Narrandera Food Garden as a community gardener, head along to the Garden at 11:30am Sunday November 2nd 2014. Narrandera Food Garden is located at the showground, next to the Men’s Shed.

There will be committee members at the Garden from 11:30am until 1pm taking membership subscriptions.

For $40 you will get your own plot for a twelve month period, to plant up with whatever herbs and vegetables you like. This year the committee will be providing seedlings and seeds at no additional cost - and of course there will always be someone available to give you planting advice should you need it.

There will also be a series of workshops held for members throughout the year – keep an eye on this blog and the Narrandera Food Garden Facebook page for details.

If you are unable to make it on November 2nd, but would like to become a member please drop us a line on Facebook or call Julie on 69592440. (Please don't state your interest in a comment here on the blog, as we might not see it.)

Narrandera Food Garden is a family-friendly environment and we welcome members of all ages, abilities and gardening experience - so if you'd like to learn new gardening skills, share the skills you have, or simply make new friends, come along and join the fun!

Composting tips with Sophea

This weekend the Time Space Place: Nomad Project Performance Space project was hosted at Narrandera by The Cad Factory, and took up residence for a few days beside our Garden.

One of the artists, Sophea Lerner, is passionate about composting, both at home in her apartment and while she travels. Sophea and her friends were happy to work with Narrandera Food Garden to make use of our compost tumblers while they were in residence, and in return Sophea shared some of her home composting tips with us.

While in Narrandera, Sophea also showed us her portable 'garden in a suitcase', and some of her friends conducted wild-greens foraging activities and created artworks based on the edible plants they found. (If any readers have photos of these let us know!)

Sophea Lerner sharing some of her composting tips with Narrandera Food Gardeners and friends

One of Sophea's key tips: make sure you have enough (chemical free!), carbon-rich, dry, 'brown' waste - such as shredded paper, dried hay, or dead leaves - to balance your nitrogen-rich, wet, food scraps or fresh garden clippings. This will help your scraps break down into rich, friable compost, and avoid becoming slimy and smelly. Keeping your wet scraps covered by a dry layer can also help keep pests out of your compost.

Sophea preparing to open the compost tumbler after 
several days of adding food scraps

Inspecting the compost in the tumbler

 - it was a little wet, we needed to add more brown matter!

Four-footed gardener Gigi learned a few tips as well (and caught us a mouse)