‘The Garden’ Autumn Gathering March 2015

There are moments when everything flows in a community garden. Today was one of those magic days.

With the tropical weather pattern of February in full swing, the plant systems at the Garden have bloomed in response. The food forest is just amazing, the White Sapote in particular, has had over a hundred mature fruit around 10 - 12cm in diameter. The place is absolutely pumping with goodness, a fabulous space to both work and relax.

The ‘Garden’ is often referred as an incubator for emerging talented gardeners, who take with them the Permaculture practices to develop their own version of Eden.

Today, many of these capable folk came back to hook in to the autumn tasks at hand, whilst having a great time in the process.

In a record work output for a monthly garden gathering, 10 of the long beds in the four season vegetable beds were weeded and built up using the ‘no dig’ gardening method. Another 4 were also weeded and mulched lightly with straw ready for autumn legumes of snow peas and broad beans.

Our three metre square compost heap, built from the prior garden gathering was turned by a couple of enthusiastic and energetic young fire brands from Kiama.

The Madeira vine colonising the space behind the water tank was weeded and fed to the chooks. (The Madeira vine egg conversion is our preferred management method to herbicide application.)

Nugyen, harvested around 20 old hamii bamboo shoots for a tasty Thai soup, whilst generating plenty of good discussion amongst the foodies.
Other effective pottering buzzed around the mandala garden too.

The famous 1pm lunch was not disappointing for the 20 folk who sat down to an amazing home cooked and largely home grown table of organic goodness.

To the fantastic mob of Permaculture practioners and community gardeners, thank you for cranking the goodness and celebrating a wonderful start to autumn.

Looking forward to seeing you all next month, where we will be planting up the beds and building more bamboo trellis.

 "Crankin' the goodness" with building 'no dig' gardens on the north facing long beds

The famous 1pm lunch