28 February: 2021 SLCG Snaps

 

Sweet Potato, Cucomelon and Tomatoes all doing their thing

 

 

Basil galore. It's been a good year for most herbs

 

 

A temporary green hedge for a year or two: pineapples!

 

Edible (and drinkable) flowers galore

Native edible "violets", native "parsley" and European parsley too . . .

Donated Shade House Number 1

Donated Shade House Number 2

Pumpkins proving particularly popular

Really getting there: a place for stuff and a place to put the stuff to good use

No, I don't get bigger. I am a cucomelon and I look like a melon but I taste like a cucumber.

Sometimes we don't see the progress because we are too close to the day to day

The two main elements of the BCC Compost Hub: the public part (front), and the SLCG bays (rear)

You put a small lump of sweet potato in decent soil with water and sun and stand back.

Alongside the butcher birds and the kookaburras that share the Park with us, we have some regular thick-kneed parenting going on too

28 February: Planning ahead from Stages 1 to 4

Stage One (July to December 2020) of the St Lucia Community Garden project is now behind us. 

Walter Taylor Ward grants paid for two splendid permanent Terraces for our tricky site and three tonnes of mulch, a generous SLCA boost to Members' funds paid for our first 12m long row of raised beds, and generous locals gave us a 1000 litre water tank, a recycled tool shed and months of vigorous herbs, flowers, vegetables through their daily hand watering.

We now host a Community Compost Hub on the SLCG site as well.

So bring us your “vegan” kitchen waste and use the marked bins provided. No meat, fish, eggs, dairy or plastic please.And remember to layer some of the "brown" material (in the brown wheely bins) on top of your contributions . . .

Every few days the SLCG volunteers will take on the task of emptying the green-lidded "Feed Me" bins, extracting and binning what cannot be composted (hopefully almost nothing) and adding the remainder to the larger, locked SLCG compost bays behind. Our thanks to Clytie from BCC Waste for getting the project up and running, to Mark for building the bin site and to Tineke for our splendid blackboard-style Compost Bay fronts.

 Stage Two (January to August 2021) is well underway with significant funds promised by both our Councillor and our State MP for more infrastructure and more raised beds, while we have other grant applications ($3,000 or so) lodged to nudge things along, and when we receive Incorporated Association status (in progress) we will be knocking on many more doors. So, by the end of winter, SLCG Members will have 100 sq m or more of raised beds to work with, and the SLCG will be able to host teaching, gardening and an outreach programme for garden-poor St Lucia schools, aged care communities and interested locals.

By the end of 2022 (Stage Three) the plan is to complete a third, even larger Growing Terrace, construct a dozen more raised beds for it, install proper paths, surround the CG with a living, fragrant hedge, see mains water connected, build shade, social and training structures, install a bigger, better shed, and be ready to share the satisfaction of growing our own fruit, vegetables and flowers with a lot more locals.

By the end of 2023 (Stage Four) we plan to have a wider planting and revegetation campaign in place to restore to our host Park and Creek many of the nutritional, medicinal and cultural indigenous Australian species it was once well known for from Byron to Noosa.

 Our particular gratitude goes to the more than 40 people who have become financial members, to the SLCA for making it happen right from the very start, to Hillstone St Lucia for endless assistance, to BCC and Cllr Mackay for supporting new inner west Community Gardens so strongly, to Bunnings Indro for tools, timber and paint, to our team of volunteer (and often Member) workers, planters and waterers, and to the hundreds of local and visiting people who have given us so much encouragement or support so far.