Ch, Ch, Ch, Changes . . .

It's been a busy beginning to the year with quite a few changes to the Garden itself, lots of weather, news on the Lower Terrace being extended, our shed shifting from down to up, quite a lot of new crops and garden features, some issues with pests (both wearing and without clothes) and a few improvements in the Community Compost Hub. 

However, one of the key changes is that our online presence is now based at https://stluciacommunitygarden.org/, so do click the link, have a look around, send us a message, ask a question, or catch up with the new Indigenous Garden project: "New Shoots from Old Roots". Oh, and do change your bookmarks. We won't be using this platform any more, but it'll hang around until Google get bored with it...

 Learnings and resources...  07.12.22

We are just a couple of days away from going live with the St Lucia Community Garden's latest project "New Shoots from Old Roots", our Indigenous Garden and matching website, between them reflecting the original and historical native plants and traditional uses of the creek, links and park our Community Garden now shares. 

http://stluciacommunitygarden.org/new-shoots/ has more information, but do remember you are looking at a sneak preview . . . 

The plants are sourced, planted or awaiting replanting, the information is largely ready, and the crucial site signage (which uses individual QR Codes to allow visitors direct access to the species-specific webpage) is almost there too.

Our thanks to Brisbane City Council (via the Lord Mayor's Cultivating Community Gardens grant stream) and Maiwar MP Michael Berkman (for contributing top-up funds to bridge the significant extra costs 2022 brought us all). It may seem a simple task to bung in a few native plants and there you are, but doing it properly and in a lasting way takes a fair bit more time, effort and cash.

 Better weather, better Garden

After losing multiple plantings to the very wet winter this year, July and August's better days let some hardy survivors recover, some plantings happy to have wet feet almost all the time thrive, and some new introductions say hello to the sun.

Herbs like rosemary, parsley, mint, dill, lemon verbena, sage, thyme and chervil made jazzing up a salad a pleasure, while our native violets, nasturtiums, some resilient alyssums and the bounty that comes from chucking your bok choi, rocquette and mizuna seeds into strategic places brought us flowers, colour, pollinator attractions and new plants when many other species were still having a kip. 

Dutch Cream potatoes, loads 'a beetroot, regular and purple kales, sprouting broccoli, sugar snap and garden peas, wombok lettuce, bok choi and plenty of perpetual (cut-and-come-again) spinach kept us in the greens, while we look forward to regular and purple running beans, the return of fresh chillies and our first late winter strawberries. 

Our papaw, pumpkin and tomato seed-rich compost (if you don't want them, just pull out the new seedlings as they sprout, because the seeds are undetectable as we make our compost!) has brought us lots of surprise additions in lots of surprise places, while donated orchids, elkhorn ferns, foxgloves, pelargoniums and camellias have made welcome additions to the non-edible palette . . .

 SLCG Annual General Meeting, Sunday July 18 2022, 3pm

After a one week postponement due to the unexpected unavailability of our Treasurer on the first proposed date, the SLCG Inc held its first regular meeting on 18 July, as prescribed by our Rules. All current SLCG Members were invited to attend, or to submit proxies via the Secretary, and several parties who expressed interest in observing were granted permission by the Committee.

The 2022 AGM Agenda is here (PDF) and the 2022 AGM Minutes are here. The 2021 Minutes of the Special General Meeting held to establish the SLCG as the SLCG Inc. (a legally Incorporated Association) referred to in the 2022 AGM Agenda are here. The Treasurer's 2022 Financial Report is here.

The Officers of the Committee were re-elected unopposed at the meeting. No other candidates nominated for the positions. The President would like to thank all the Officers and Committee members for their unstinting and wholehearted work to make the Garden work as a community organisation as well as a place to grow, and learn and laugh.

 Hello again. . .

It's been a long time between posts on here, but our Facebook Group, our regular Working Bees (currently the first Sunday of each month at 15:00) and our emails to Garden Members have bridged the gap, I hope. A message via this blog, or to stluciacommunitygarden@gmail.com will always get to one or other of the Officers of the Incorporated Association (oooh, errr) soon enough, and get a reply, and there is almost always somebody doing something useful or fun (usually both) almost every morning every week sometime between 07:30 and 09:00.

 Getting a pilot system going to flag up what is its name, what it is, and what you can do with it (like eat it)...

QR Codes in place for individual beds, pots and areas, and to keep our insurers aware and happy that our public liability records are systematic and always up to date:

 Bindii-i be gone: 

Ten SLCG members and helpers turned up to get down and digging. Result: we took more than two garbage bags of highly invasive and unpleasant weed to a very different place.