For many working people living in the mountains it is hard to make the current Friday 10am-2pm timeslot. We are keen to get more people involved who cannot make those Friday sessions due to work or other commitments.

These sessions will be only two hours and tend to be focussed on undertaking a specific range of tasks or workshop like activities. It is assumed that the intent is also to meet up with like minded community gardening people and catch up with how the gardens are progressing, swap plants, seeds and information. Feel free to come and help or possibly just watch the plants grow.

The shed will be open and tools available for this two hour period.

The first of these Sunday volunteer sessions will be this coming Sunday 22nd January [2012]

This does not replace the Friday volunteer sessions which will continue as usual each Friday from 10am till 2pm.

The physic & herb garden progresses...

Phew! the weather has been extreme for a while now… but work is still happening on developing the physic & herb garden.

Stage 3 of the herb garden is complete with a layer of soil now sitting on top of slightly aged base layers of chip, compost, lucerne and straw. The top layer has mushroom compost, cow manure, general compost and a range of other goodies in it. It is about 10-15cm deep all over.
Stage 4 – next work is making the sides more defined and stabilised.
Stage 5 – Given a week to settle this top layer will sink a bit and we can level it again and start planting while adding more soil and mulch as we do it.
It will be complex getting the soil PH and build/texture correct for a lot of the herbs initially but it should support some of the hardier ones now the weather has settled.

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Was good to see a lot of people turn up today for the friday session. Despite the previous week or so of solid rain and wetness it was a fairly sunny and warm day and we got a lot done. The Broadbean harvest half filled a wheelbarrow and we got a lot of soil area prepped for planting of the summer greens. Here’s a few snaps of some of the group working up at the north end on turning soil over.

Just beyond the labyrinth and hazel hedge, a new garden plan is taking shape.

Dear Neighbours,
A Winnifred Lane ‘Transformation Team’ has started work on the unused wasteland slope between Station Street and Freelander Avenue with the aim of making it into a community space useful for those who live nearby or walk around here, and an example of organic 21st century reclamation of a dump. Blue Mountains City Council has been consulted as it is on the map as unformed road (see the red bit of the map below). Legal matters have been discussed and being considered.

A small team of local volunteers is meeting on Friday mornings and removing rubbish and weeds, cutting back and planning a pleasant near future public space. This little place can become an asset to the neighbourhood without huge costs of time or money just by working together in co-operation. The group (a great motley crew!) meets at 9am Fridays for about 2 hours. We’ve had lots of laughter and good will and not too much hard labour. Believe it or not it is working and it is fun!

Come and see what’s happening.
Meet some positive people wearing gloves, hats and smiles and be welcome!

“It would be great to meet many other gardeners and find out what’s happening in your gardens and suburbs. There are so many new gardens springing up! We also want to talk about plans for a National Gathering in Sydney next October.”

Sunday, December 11 - White’s Creek Community Garden, 31 White Street, Lilyfield

Arrive at 11:00am for a cuppa and catchup—11:30 start – 2:30pm finish

http://communitygarden.org.au/blog/2011/11/13/sydney-gathering/

A large Blue Tongue lizard spotted today on the west side of the creek basking in the sun  in amongst the vegetables. Along with snakes these lizards have been coming out more frequently with the warmer wet weather. Good to see the wildlife thriving.

It looks like a good year for fruit trees all around this year in the mountains – especially pears, quinces and apples. It will be great this year to try all the varieties of fruit growing at the gardens instead of watching them being mostly taken by the wildlife and weather.

This Friday we follow up from the tree pruning session we had a few months ago. This time we will be spotting and identifying fruit trees with good clusters of fruit and then bagging them to protect them from weather, birds and animals.
I have a stack of various bags ready to go and we will be using various waxed paper, mesh and cloth bags to cover the fruit.

Lloyd will provide fruit protection bags to be used onsite and some general guidance to get going.

Session will start at 11am and go for about 1 hour.
Open to whoever turns up and can help  This will be followed up with another session in a few weeks to check on them and see how the fruit is developing, and then eventually another session in summer to pick and taste the ripe fruit.

Even if we only get a few apples off of each tree in the Heritage Apple walk it will be worth it.

UPDATE -

We had a good turnout on the day and attached at least 100+ bags of various types to protect the trees. We ran out of bags long before covering all the fruit we wanted to save! We will do some more bagging over the next few weeks when bag stocks have been replenished. Looking forward to seeing the results in Summer when we pick.