Welcome new additions

The Walter Taylor Ward Children's Fun Day at the 100 Acre Bar last Monday went off extremely well, and volunteers at the SLCG next door spent quite a lot of time answering visitors' questions, explaining how the Garden works at the moment (while we are still quite small in area), and showing off what we have been able to achieve already. 

A couple of new Members joined us as well, and locals Lillian and James arrived bearing gifts of quick-growing Asian salad vegetables. It wasn't long before they were planted up . . .

Meanwhile Andrew and Ian cobbled together something out of nothing (climbing support frames for our tomato and bean beds) with some left-over chicken wire, a few posts and some ingenuity . . .

 Last day for people to become Foundation Members

The close of business today, Wednesday, 30 June, marks the end of our discounted opening Foundation Membership offer of 5 years' membership of the SLCG for the price of 4. One of those loss-leader ideas I guess, but twelve people took a punt, which brought us a significantly larger lump of start up cash (which we have sunk into raised beds, seeds and garden equipment) than we would otherwise have had at our disposal. It also marks the last day before all our Membership classes (Single, Family and Foundation) go live from 1 July. The SLCG Inc. would like to thank everybody who has chipped in to support us by becoming a member. Our total is up to almost 60 people now, which is really encouraging. I hope we can now prove ourselves to be a good investment in growing, caring, learning and teaching, sharing and harvesting. 

 Some admin news we find dead exciting

The St Lucia Community Garden Association is now The St Lucia Community Garden Inc.  That means we have been officially granted the important status of being an Incorporated Association. The key consequence is that small and large funding or grant-making bodies (private, charitable, government or business) can now meet their own rules and give us money for new projects or activities. What we need now is the right ideas, and energy and people to deliver what we come up with. It's been quite a long process to sort out that Inc. and it'll be interesting to see what we make of it.

Another important and immediate result is that we can release the St Lucia Community Association from their role as our "auspicing" body, open our own bank account and grow up on our own.  

The SLCG Inc would particularly like to thank the SLCA for coming up with the original idea of a new Community Garden for St Lucia, for working closely and productively with BCC, Clr Mackay and Walter Taylor Ward to get the project off the ground (sorry), and for taking on our admin and bank affairs ever since late 2019. And, just as importantly, kicking in significant funds during 2020 to build and stock the SLCG Upper Terrace beds quite a while before the other new CGs in our area had much to show for all their own hard work to get set up. 

Our sincere thanks and appreciation go to "The Parents' Bank".

 A idea to help us bring in some cash for more kit and crops . . .

Our first batch of sweet, crumbly, nutritious and chocolatey compost hand-sieved into the prettiest compost bags I have ever seen.  We plan to charge something like $10 a bag of about 10kg of compost. Just as soon as our bank account is up and running through Bank Australia. Myself, I'd be hanging these bags on a wall after they were empty.

 First proper harvests coming in (and up)...

 

 June working bees: propagation basics

Planting out much of last summer's basil so it can set seed and be ready for renewal next spring. And sowing lots of new vegetable and herb seeds for growing on over winter in our new Lower Terrace raised beds... Beans, peas, tomatoes, radishes, parsley, marjoram, oregano and lots more.

 Ch-ch-ch-Changes: Little things can mean a lot

 A second water tank installed to make watering the new Lower Terrace beds much easier (courtesy of Walter Taylor Ward)

 

 Saturday 15 May: BCC Community Compost Hub Opening Day

 A sausage sizzle, an on site coffee van, free native plants , free kitchen scraps caddies plus lots of marquees heralded the formal opening ceremonies of our St Lucia Community Garden BCC Community Compost Hub. 

What's that: the SLCGBCCCCH? I hope not . . .

 

Garden regulars will know that we were already up and running pretty well and had made (and begun to put to good use) about 120kg of finished (and beautiful) of our own compost to show off just how good the end result of not chucking everything in the Council red-top bin can be.

Now ST Lucia and Taringa locals can enjoy the warm inner glow of not wasting stuff, and helping us grow more and better veggies.

So, Councillor James Mackay from Walter Taylor Ward joined Clytie Binder from the Behaviour Change unit of BCC's Field Services' Waste and Recovery Services Branch and Ian Nicolson from the SLCG to launch the new muck to magic facility with a splash. 

 

Our thanks go particularly  to Walter Taylor Ward staff Belinda and Philippa who did almost all the organizing and to the Indooroopilly Men's Shed for all the sizzling.

Clytie also gave a useful and engaging talk about how useful not wasting food scraps can be, saving Council a fortune on hauling away and landfilling thousands of tonnes of food scraps every year, reducing methane generation and producing one of the best soil boosters you can imagine.

The weather was as good as one could possibly want in May and the whole affair went down very well for about 120-150 people. And the SLCG got to use one of the new green marquees (that we have just been given) for the very first time.