Late last year, the community gardeners were delighted to receive a $1000 Community Grant from Katoomba Community Bendigo Bank.

“We have put this grant to work buying supplies of pruning gear,  replaced some aging tools, replenished the first aid kit and fixed up a broken wheelbarrow with a new lease of life” says Kat Szuminska.

To celebrate this support on Friday this last week Brigitte MacKenzie from Bendigo Bank brought us this fabulous giant cheque!

Support like this really is very much appreciated by the volunteers that work at the gardens and consequently all those other locals who visit, use and enjoy the Blue Mountains Organic Community Gardens.

Thanks!

Nice day for gardening as usual  Today we did some remedial pruning on the umaboshi plum circle, completed the filling and setup of the third quick pick metal raised garden near the carpark and then did some general weeding and planting and checking on growth etc. A very nice productive day again.

Artfully spreading the seaweed…

Remedial weeding… and plant transplanting…

Turning the black walnuts out after a good 2 week soaking and contemplating the outcome…

Thanks to everyone who turned up to help out

Well we had a good turnout of people and a very productive pleasant Autumn day today. The broad beans and peas we planted last week are bursting through. We completed the planting out of seeds in the plots that were cleaned up last week. This included more dwarf peas interplanted with radishes, silver beet, carrots and lettuce.

Jed has been working on the potato patch. The leaf fall is starting to build up.

We constructed another metal raised quick pick garden for the carpark area. This will be filled with soil and compost over the next week ready hopefully to be planted out next weekend. Annie and Franklin spent some time cutting hose for the edges and we reinforced them all a little more. The existing plants are growing well and this is turning into a very productive area. Despite being fairly exposed to the elements it is very sunny and the seeds and seedlings seem to like the raised warm space.

Thanks again to all who turned up and helped out.

International Permaculture Open Day May 6th at the Community Gardens in Katoomba.

This is an international event and you will find many listings for what is happening in Australia here:  http://www.permacultureday.info

We will be running the usual volunteers Sunday session starting at 10am but then move into the Permaculture Day activities which will run till 3pm.

11:00 – 3pm - Permaculture Day at North Katoomba Community Gardens Harold Hodgson Park, Victoria St, Katoomba Entry by $5 donation and includes a yummy soup and sourdough lunch (so we can buy some more fruits nuts and perennials to grow our food forest) There’s not just one but many gardens in Harold Hodgson reserve; an aboriginal garden, perennial flower garden, soup garden, heritage apple walk, the medieval village project, labyrinth and performance space as well as a dedicated childrens’ play area. A protected swamp, creek and bush areas undergoing regeneration all fit together in this ever evolving permaculture design.

11am-12:00 – Seeds and Seedlings Grow your own! Gardeners favorite annual and perennial herbs and vegetables available for a donation, delicious varieties of locally growing open pollinated, heirloom, organic (and Mountain hardy!)

12:00-12:30  - Walking Tour Join our knowledgable landscape team on a special tour and check out our water management design features and catch up with the latest in innovative pilot creekline restoration project.

12:30 - 2pm Soup and Sourdough, made with ingredients fresh from the garden and donated by local producers. Twitter with friends around our Outdoor oven. Free with entry!

12:30 Growing food in unusual containers - You can grow food anywhere, and in all sorts of unusual containers, it can help to know where they’ve been! Bring along a container you’d like to grow in and Sue Girard from Katoomba Street Permaculture will help get you started.

2pm - Walking tour of the Gardens with founding community gardener Supapon Lantay and our very special community gardening team. This tour will be showcasing our well loved cool climate heritage fruit and annual vegetable gardens and introducing our newest plot, the Physic Garden, a health and wealth of medicinal specimen plants. What garden remedies do you use at home?

All day, every day – Pot Swappin’ and Tool Shedding - Bring plant pots for Pot Swappin’ or donate old hand tools to Tool Shedding. The community gardeners put them all to work again and keeps them busy growing more plants. Don’t just throw these valuable items away, give yours a clean and bring them along.

Whether you’re potting up, potting on or just a bit potty… Find out more about the community gardens at http://bluemountainscommunitygardens.org

Also check for our listing on the website here - http://www.permacultureday.info/?event=community-gardens-big-open-day

Today was a very nice day for gardening! We had a great turnout of eventually about 20 people itching to dig and weed and so on and we got a lot done.

So what did we do? :

• We weeded
• We seeded
• We mourned the terrible growing summer and lack of growth and then we sacrificed the tomatoes and the corn
• then we turned and dug the beds over ready to plant.
• The tomatoes were hung on the side of the shed to dry and ripen what was left of the green crop [there is some there to ripen]
• We planted the first of the autumn Broadbeans
• We planted out a small crop of Garlic
• We loosely installed a new First Aid kit in the central mud hut [expertly and precariously balanced by Kat and Franklin]
• We staked out protection for the remainder of the citrus trees.
• Much mulch was moved about the place
• Seedlings were thinned and transplanted to the quick pick gardens near the carpark.
• and more…

The Citrus are all rugged up ready for the winter now…

Here’s Kat and Franklin attaching the First Aid kit temporarily to the wall in an expert way.

Then going feral on the drying racks…

And here’s a bunch more activity staking out some figs at the north end.

Thanks to all those who turned up and helped. It’s good to see some enthusiasm returning and people getting the time to help out.