We have stumps - let's make this!

Resources and Learning

We are beginning to get together a collection of resources our gardeners can use over the future years of community gardening. This is the worlds largest catalogue of heirloom seeds. A good start.

Food Glorious Food.

Today I picked these from our Wiradjuri Food Garden at the Sandhills Foundation. The snowpeas are all gone - eaten straight from the vine by the girls that planted them. Salads have been made from the produce. Beetroot has been roasted. Success! Planning now what to plant next. Ideas people?

Our first wicking garden - in a raised bed.

Well in week three of the Links to Learning relationship with Narrandera Food Garden the students built a wicking garden. A wicking garden is a system in which water is retained in the gravel at the base of the bed, and only moves up as the earth above dries out. It's a simple permaculture principle and reduces water use by reducing evaporation and reduces the frequency with which watering is required by retaining water within the loop until it's needed by the plants.

TAFE teacher Karen Lenehan demonstrated the way a wicking bed works first using a small one made using a polystyrene box, gravel, shade cloth, soil and a poly pipe. It's simple, anyone can do it. Karen has built 5 larger beds at home and she only needs to water weekly or less.

The students laying the shade cloth (you can use weed mat in the base of the garden.

With pond liner in on top of weed mat - the gravel layer goes in.

News from the Wiradjuri Food Garden

Hi all,
This garden is at the rear of the Sandhills Foundation in Audley Street. I ate snowpeas fresh picked from the vine just this morning. It is so so lush!  It was planted up by a group of Year 7 - 10 students and a small group of community Elders who regularly visit the foundation.  As you can see the raised beds are working a treat.  Thanks to Cory Prior who checks on the garden and waters daily.  It's at picking stage so it's wonderful to know our elders are picking salad items and taking them home.

Tomatoes, lettuce and companion plants - marigold. The marigolds are doing their job. They attract the bugs that would normally attack the tomatoes. Might need to plant more Marigolds - they have been much munched upon!

 
The citrus goes in.

Uncle Kevin gives our seedlings some attention.


Very pleased with ourselves.

You have to agree - that is success!!!!.  And I ate snow peas straight from the vine.

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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.