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.

Whoops! Sorry not to post in April, but we've been busy being busy . . .

Lots of progress to report, and some proper news to share as well. Those of you who have been paying close attention will know that the most important procedural task for the SLCG this year has been to apply to QG for recognition as an Incorporated Association. Thanks to the diligence and skills of our Treasurer, Elliott, and the willingness of Members to turn up and vote on wordy motions, we have submitted and are now awaiting formal confirmation of acceptance.

Meanwhile, our "completed" Community Compost Hub will be having a super-formal (not really) launch on Saturday 15 May at about 09:30. Bcc staff and Cllr Mackay will be on hand to offer handy kitchen scraps "caddies" to make bringing your vegetable waste to the Hub more straightforward, and to answer questions you may have about the process of compost making and how everyone can contribute and why they should. I have heard there may be refreshments, quite likely with key ingredients sourced from the Community Garden itself.

Here's the Hub, which, because we believe in getting on with things, particularly if there is time involved, has already generated more than 100kgs of finished ready-to-use compost for the Garden. We'll be leaving the steps open to admiration or quibbling until after the Hub launch, so you can see exactly how it is done, and how easy making your own (or ours) can be. Lots more info here: https://www.brisbane.qld.gov.au/clean-and-green/green-home-and-community/sustainable-gardening/compost-and-organic-waste-recycling/compost/community-composting-hubs

A little later in June we'll be participating in a school holiday time "Fun Day" at the neighbouring 100 Acre Bar sponsored by Cllr Mackay and the Hillstone/Links lessees, Hans and Jens. Details to follow . . .

Meanwhile, stuff on site has been changing, sometimes for nothing using our tremendous volunteers' labour and energy, and sometimes through the strategic use of specific grant funding and dedicated community garden building specialists. A combination of BCC and Maiwar grants plus our carefully handled Membership dues has delivered us two huge raised beds that boost our growing area by more than 200%.

The new beds are "c" shaped to simplify access for people with mobility or reach challenges, or who have not grown very tall yet. 

SLCG Members will be discussing how exactly we can best use the space during the coming week or so. We hope/plan/expect to boost those beds by using about half of our 21/22 Walter Taylor Ward grant funding (the same funding stream that paid for our terraces) to fund hopefully four additional taller, smaller raised beds built by Council (as already supplied to our friends at the Taringa and Chapel Hill CGs). 

That lot will let us begin to grow and harvest in earnest.

The same Walter Taylor funding pot will also hopefully bring us some permanent paths around the CG, and to finish off the Lower Terrace structurally, which will allow us to move the shed backwards a significant distance and give us about 20 square metres more usable space.

Speaking of sheds, the Committee got busy last weekend and Marie Kondo'd our shed . . .

New shelves are coming for the shed soon, and a second water tank has appeared and then disappeared (sort of) last week as well:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Making watering the new Lower Terrace beds much easier.

 

And last but not least there's the important social side: