Just in time . . .

Thanks to a sterling effort by Mandy, Morag and Beverley on Saturday morning we managed to get all the likely wash-away spots decently mulched just in time, half the time in the start of the showers. A quick inspection today showed no problems at all.

Since the forecast is for more rain today and for a lot of next week, we will be lucky to get much more done on site for a day or two.  Time to get some administration and organizing of materials done...

 Inconveniently dry "wet" weather . . .

But the basic mulching task continues, and we are well over half way through now.

Ian only bogged the tipper buggy twice today (in the dry dusty un-mulched soil), and Linny more than made up for the delays with a little rather magical "help" for each barrow-load from Billy.

 

 Wonderful, but inconvenient rain . . .

Steve powered through the start of the inclement weather yesterday, barrowing a huge amount of mulch up the hill, but four other volunteers set to paint today had to stand down. BOM says it will be a bit wet every day for a week or so, so we'll concentrate on shifting lots of mulch this weekend.

 18 panels painted, only 4 to go.

Thanks today go to Rebecca, who pitched in on five or so of the panels. We should be able to knock them all off (you know what I mean) by Friday afternoon . . . All we need to do then is work out how to rivet them back together, bolt them all into the frame and bolt that to the sleeper foundations. And hang the doors. And fit a heavy duty lock . . .

 

 A lovely shade of Mangrove . . .

Ian and Sue got busy today.

 Another very big day on the mulch . . .

 We got most of the CG slopes protected on Sunday just in time before the splash or two of rain last night.

That will help solidify our deco granite terrace surfaces nicely, and - because of the newly-spread mulch - not wash away the very fine top soil spread around the perimeter of the Community Garden. Thanks this time go to the two Murrays, and JB once again. 

The mulch pile still has a slightly intimidating look but I reckon we've distributed getting on for half of it now.

NEXT:

• If you'd like to chip in yourself this week, the weather forecast is pretty much fine or partly cloudy this week, which means the shed painting can go with a swing. So we plan 08:30 - 10:30 sessions on site (dressed 

• to paint or mulch) for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday this week. Afternoons can be available on request. The weekend is destined for much mulching unless the weather goes wrong. 

• Shed construction and location now planned for the first week of November (tbc). 

• Raised bed construction planned around the weekend of 6, 7, 8 November (tbc). No known volunteer labour needed there. 

• Anyone who has a ute or light truck and could pick up one or two empty poly 1000l IBC (water) tanks from Logan or Carole Park (or similar) for us over the next fortnight or so, do get in touch.

 Pitching in . . .

So many thanks to John B. Andrew, Steve and Wendy who've put in some proper yakka getting us much further down the road to being ready to cultivate since Thursday. Painting, shed site prep and lots of mulch the focus this weekend . . .

 

About a tonne of mulch already spread to hold the brought-in soil (if it ever rains) and give us a surface to walk on apart from the deco granite terrace surfaces and car park access path, and quite a stretch of painting (about 32 sq metres of shed walls and roof all up). 

More of the same available all this weekend (usually mornings 8:30-10:30 and afternoons 15:00-17:30) and almost certainly next week too. Email if you can help, or jump on and join the "St Lucia Community Garden" Facebook Group.

Above ground at last: Compost, Shed base, Shed painting, Mulch distribution etc. . .

Big day yesterday, but plenty still to do.

Email us if you can help out over the next few days . . .

 

 Sweet as . .  .

Somewhat surprisingly, in August the Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner asked the SLCG if we would like a donated European Bee Hive (called a FlowHive) for the new Garden from his Grant Funds. 

We already have plans for hosting stingless native bees on the Community Garden site, but the European Bees have a major role to play in wild and garden plant pollination all over Australia now, so with the co-operation of Hillstone and the St Lucia Golf Links, we agreed to site the Bee Hive on their property.

The site is next to a large stand of flowering trees and permanent water, and quite a long way away from people (other than perhaps the occasional golfer faced with an urgent call of nature...

The boxed-up FlowHive arrived from Northern NSW last week, and was presented to St Lucia Community Garden Launch Organiser Ian Nicolson by the LM himself and Cr James Mackay (on the Learning Terrace) and has now been put together by Steve at Hillstone. 

 We've found a great shady/sunny spot and all we need now is some bees. They are on the way. Until the Hive settles down, we expect to let them alone, but Hillstone's Executive Chef has plans to use as many local ingredients as possible and some Sandy Creek Honey fits that bill pretty well . . .

Good stuff . . .

This is the new St Lucia Community Garden Compost Hub already in action and holding about 150 kgs of compost makings so far: 

• light, dry brown material (mostly fallen leaves), 
• our particularly rich and regular supply of fresh green vegetable and fruit trimmings saved for us daily from the 100 Acre Bar and Hillstone kitchens, 
• a load of local “starter" compost full of the essential insects and microbes, 
• about 20 kgs of fresh coffee grounds to add texture and stabilize the PH as the compost works. 

These three Hub containers' lids are locked and they are reserved for the CG’s Compost gurus to work with. 

 

That way we can make sure no inappropriate material (plastic and so on) contaminates the already working batches, or attracts pests like snakes or rats. It also means we can optimise the compost mix for what the garden needs, bulk and texture to begin with, better nutrition or PH balancing as the Garden grows and changes . . .

Being constructed next door this week are two extra large open bays made from deconstructed shipping pallets. 

 

One is to hold easily accessible fresh green material like hedge clippings and herbicide-free grass clippings. The other is for brown carbon-rich fallen leaves, twigs, bark and so on. 

The structure for the bulk green and brown material bays began going in on Thursday, thanks to Rusty, and the pallet  walls will be completed next week. 

 

We plan to have simple swing doors on the front face to allow for easier access . . .

 

The coffee grounds collection system is in place (and almost too successful already) and the bulk kitchen waste supplies are coming along nicely. 

 

This first heap is around a metre deep already after just three weeks. Definitely not "ready" yet, but currently smells a bit like an odd Tia Maria. . . 

  

BCC will soon be supplying us with the key public-facing plastic bins to help all our locals recycle their suitable (please!) materials as well. We'll make some kind of splash once the whole system is up and "cooking"!

 

Here’s a fully finished Community Compost Hub BCC prepared last month for the new Taringa (Perrin Park) Community Garden. 

 

The idea is you turn up with your container of suitable kitchen scraps, find the bin lid that says "Feed Me" on it and do just that.

 Hello, SLCG Members and Friends

Welcome to a brand new website for the St Lucia Community Garden (the old one was proving increasingly unreliable), to reflect the steps we are taking to move toward independence from the St Lucia Community Association, who had the concept for our project and then the drive and the patience to get us here. 

It’s been a few weeks since we had practical news for you about the Community Garden, mostly because we were waiting for delivery of Phase 2’s build programme, but if you have been checking out our St Lucia Community Garden Facebook Group (sign up there for email notifications), or have passed by the CG site you’ll have noticed lots of action and major changes since last week.

Council’s groundworks contractor has at last completed the lower "Growing Terrace" walls and build, added a permanent, stable working surface to both Terraces and created a simple path to Hillstone’s carpark. We didn’t have quite enough cash from our second generous grant from Cr Mackay and Walter Taylor Ward to achieve all wall length we wanted, but there’s more than enough done now for us to get going as community gardeners.

Which means crucial above ground preparations for us to deliver as well:

 

Compost

You may have already seen the new closed Compost Hubs (built for the CG to use by Council). We are building open bays for bulk green and brown materials right next door to the Hub bins. We are also looking forward to the imminent installation of our six public-facing black plastic bins by Council, for members of the public (as well as Garden Members) to contribute their vegetable-based kitchen waste to.  We’ll lay out a lot more about what people can (and definitely can’t) recycle as Garden compost via the black bins once they are in place.

Core tasks

As soon as we have our public liability insurance in place, we will sort some other chores we need sorted before we can start actual gardening.  We already have a donated tools shed arriving next week. It needs painting, putting together and then erecting (all planned for the week starting 12.10.20)), we are getting in quotes for an on-site water tank (to be paid for out of Members' fees), and will be building the upper, Learning Terrace, raised garden beds during October.

Meanwhile, the SLCG Launch Committee has been working on some of the inevitable admin:

• applying for additional grant funding
• sourcing in-kind funding for tools and materials
• researching and buying the best public liability insurance for Members and helpers
• getting BCC permission (as Land Manager) to use the site as a Community Garden
• drafting our SLCG Membership Rules and the Constitution for the SLCG
• preparing the St Lucia Community Garden Association for formal independent incorporation.

So, plenty of jobs for everybody that can to get their teeth into, and at last pretty much happening now! Practical tasks like shed painting and construction next week, helping get the admin and Committee sorted out asap, spreading the word to friends and neighbours and groups like P&Cs, or helping out with transport, tools and compost making. If you can chip in time and effort, or would like to help out some other way, do write to stluciacommunitygarden@gmail.com and get your hands on!

 

Originally posted via our4067.org on 01 October 2020

Click image for larger version 

 

 

Originally posted via our4067.org on 27 July 2020

Click image for larger version 

 

 

Originally posted via our4067.org on 21 July 2020

Click image for larger version 

 

Originally posted via our4067.org on 12 July 2020

Click image for larger version