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» 2012 Gardening Workshops - 4 Seasons Veggie

Establishing a new Community Garden

LE07 Volunteer Gardening Policy
 Community Gardens Guidelines (157KB)
 Community Gardens Application Form (16KB)

Council accepts applications for new Community Garden proposals. For more information contact Council's Streets Alive Coordinator on (02) 9936 8248.

Milson Community Garden

Location:McDougall Street, Kirribilli NSW 2061
Contact:

We work as a cooperative and we do not have allotments. We meet each Sunday at 10.30am to work in the garden and we have a roster for watering.

Our garden is organic and we recycle food waste using the Japanese Bokashi system which we are turning into compost once it is fermented. We mulch with lucerne straw.

The garden design, based on research, is a medieval one which allows wheelchair access to 50% of the garden area. The raised beds help everyone be involved as they are 600mm in height and so you can be seated or a small child can - and still have easy reach. The timber beds were designed and constructed by local community members. The timber was sourced within Australia and is sustainable Australian native hardwood. (We wished to give an Australian mill the business rather than buying cheaper but unsustainable imported wood.)

A small committee of local community members chose the first planting plan and other community members raised the plants from seed sourced from Diggers Seeds in Victoria. To cut down on transplant shock, most seeds were sown in coir pellets. This has proved a great success. Children under five planted the potato beds but they are really, really interested in the heritage strawberries. Everyone keeps an eye on them to catch the strawberries when they are at their ripest. The fluid and casual nature of our gardening seems to suit everyone. Harvesting will be done by those who work in the garden. However, we are happy for people to pick small amounts of herbs, one reason why we have so many parsley plants.

Some plants currently growing in the garden include: heirloom tomatoes, blueberries, carrots, arugula, beetroot, chives, purple climbing beans, "Lazy Housewife beans", Jalapeno chillies, sweet corn, arugula and mesclun mix of lettuces. Our herbs include: perennial basil and lettuce leaf basil, variegated sage, lots of parsley, pot celery, thyme and lemon scented thyme, golden marjoram and rosemary.

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Coal Loader Community Garden

Location:The Coal Loader, 2 Balls Head Drive, Waverton (see Getting to the Coal Loader)
Contact:

 Coal Loader Community Garden History (69KB)
 Community Garden Guidelines (157KB)
 Community Gardens Application Form (16KB)

The Coal Loader Community Garden Group meets each Wednesday at 10am for about 2 hours. Any resident is welcome to join in during these hours. Being an organic communal garden, without individual garden plots, everything harvested from the garden is shared among the participants at the weekly meeting.

The garden is also open for casual viewing any day of the week.

The Coal Loader Community Garden came to life during 2005 when Council invited the local community to participate in the planning and design of the Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability.

Enthusiastic residents have followed environmentally sustainable principles and have been gardening, learning, laughing and enjoying the garden's harvest through the seasons since 2007.

The garden is set in a former industrial site where coal was delivered, stockpiled and transferred to passenger and cargo ships until the early 1990s. The site is now the Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability which includes the Community Garden, Community Native Nursery and many other interesting facilities.

Being an organic communal garden, without individual garden plots, everything harvested from the garden is shared among the participants at the weekly meeting.

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2012 Gardening Workshops

"Four Seasons Veggie Gardening"

Time: Saturdays, 9 - 11am
Location:The Coal Loader Centre for Sustainability, 2 Balls Head Drive, Waverton

The topics this year are:

RSVP essential...> book online now

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