Hi Everyone,

It was perfect in the garden yesterday with sun shining and a light breeze.   We had a generous harvest of Rainbow Chard (silver beet), Broad beans, parsley, Tuscan Kale, lettuces, and rhubarb.   We also picked lovely bunches of old fashioned, fragrant sweet peas – what a treat!

We had a big clean up with Bruce, Beth, Colin and Martin enthusiastically taking the lead.   The garden now looks particularly well tended.   We receive so many compliments and support about the garden from local people and strangers alike.  If you haven’t been down for a while, give yourself a treat and have a visit.  A local couple come down every week with buckets of worm wee which is gratefully received. Please feel free to bring down any extra that you may have from your worm farm.

Yumi, Kate, Andreas and his daughter, Nadine and baby Gabriella planted French butter beans, spring onions, soy beans and Purple Haze and red carrots.   Alas, we did not have time to sow seeds of kohl rabi, radishes,  arugula (roquette or rocket),  baby cos lettuce or California Wonder Bell and sweet chocolate capsicums.   We did not have much success last year with capsicums but we are trying out different types.  We have planted seedlings of yellow and purple capsicums in the beds near the south fence.

Jan Wagshall is busy raising seedlings of the lovely heirloom speckled lettuces (Fortensis).  These are soft leaved lettuce which were a delight last summer.  Lately, we have had a good crop of Dragons’ tongue lettuce – all raised by Jan from seeds.   Is there anyone who would like to raise seeds at home for us?

Our potatoes, which are growing in bags, (so that disease is avoided) are very healthy and promise a bumper crop in time for Christmas.  We eagerly await their flowering.   Kate gave them a good soaking yesterday as we are careful to prevent the growing bags from drying out.

broad beans:    The crimson Broad beans have been very prolific, and, although still flowering, will soon come to the end of their current crop.  Using seed from last year’s crop and adding good organic soil, compost and manures has resulted in plants that are even more vigorous than last season.  They are very tall (1.5 metres) and appear to have grown more broad beans that previously.  This is the benefit of saving seeds that are becoming used to the micro climate (who knew that plants have memories?)    We will keep the beans at the top section of the plants for next year’s seeds, in case we need them.  If you are volunteering in the garden, take care not to harvest the beans at the top of the plants.  

 Once harvesting from the broad beans is over, we will cut them back and fertilize them.  We are experimenting in growing them as perennials so they will be left in place to see what happens.  We intend to cut the stalks up and distribute them over the outside bed as mulch.  This mulch is high in nitrogen and indeed, the broad beans have already fixed nitrogen in the soil. Treating th broad beans as perennials should work, but if it does not work, we will have more seeds for 2012.

Yesterday we were able to test the new spiral plant trainers which arrived on Friday.  These plant trainers give wonderful support to broad beans, capsicums etc, without much need for use of plant ties.  We also have new traditional, shallow harvesting baskets, known as trugs.  They are made from cypress and have the advantage of ensuring that vegetables and herbs are not crushed, as they are in bigger baskets.

Recipes for broad beans   I shall send some fabulous recipes for broad beans in my next post.   Our website www.milsoncommunitygarden.org.au  will have our recipes as well as my email

Eggplants:   A second experiment that we have going, is growing eggplants as perennials.   At the end of last autumn, we cut back the aubergine plants and left them in place.  We have just fertilized them again (thank you to new volunteers Nick and James) and we will watch to see what happens.  However, next week we will sow eggplant/aubergine seeds in punnets as an insurance policy.

Outside Bed:  We have planted new Italian parsley plants raised by Jan Wagshall from seed  and planted by  Ken and Beth who are relatively new volunteers).  We have planted coriander and garlic in amongst the other vegetables.   We invite local people to pick from herbs and rhubarb from this outside bed as well as presenting them with small bunches of herbs throughout the week.  People are so touched when you offer them a bunch of parsley of some sage and thyme from the garden.  We hope that the ease of picking herbs here will spare the fenced garden from those people who just pull at our vegetables.  

Tomatoes:  Yesterday, Martin, the two Colins, Marion and Denny assembled the tomato bags and climbing frames.  Two tomato seedlings were planted in each bag.   This is an experiment in tomato growing.  The reason we are using bags is that we have either eggplants, potatoes or tomatoes in the beds before and so to avoid diseases, we are giving the beds a rest.  We cannot plant either of these crops at less that three year intervals in the same bed.    We have once again planted heirloom varieties most of which came from saved seed but some were mystery tomatoes which were self-sown.   We put some excess seedlings outside the fence with a sign “Free heritage tomato plants – please take”.   People had taken some by the late afternoon, so we hope that they will all go to good homes.

We installed “Ecolure” male fruit fly traps to attract the flies with pheromones and painted a wooden board on the tree with a substance which lures females.   Last year this system proved to be very effective.

The tomatoes which we have planted are Tigerella, which is the best yielding tomato in Diggers Seeds tomato trials last year, golden peach and some “mystery” self sown tomato seedling which are likely to be Russian Krim, Green Zebra, Tommy toe or beefsteak.

WATERING OVER TE NEXT 6 MONTHS

We are looking for volunteers to water.  Please email me with you preferred time.  With enough volunteers it is possible to water half the inside garden in an hour.  It really is a calming and relaxing thing to do.

Warm regards,

Carole Baker

Milson community garden.

Hi Everyone,

Good news - all but two of our beds have been dug out and cut grubs wrenched out of their snug beds in our soil.   The Gifford family, who sailed here from the USA, have done most of the digging and ferreting out of these creatures with Kate, Deborah, Dave and others lending a hand.  I estimate that we have despatched over two hundred and fifty of these creatures.   Plants which we had recently put in and which just seemed to sit in the soil, were found to have these grubs entwined in their roots slowly eating them away.  But I think that we have won.  

I believe that the main reason for the proliferation of the grubs can be traced to our discouragement of Myna birds with our thrumming lines around the garden.  These lines discourage all birds and so protect our tomato, tamarillo,strawberries and other vegetable crops from being eaten.  The downside is that the young insects and grubs are not eaten by the birds.  It does not help that the rest of the park is infested as well.  But it is just one example of an imbalance in nature caused by our own actions.   We will just have to be very vigilant and very consistent in our spraying to deter cabbage and other moths.

The parsnips which we have raised from seeds are growing particularly well in the bed near the fence and because we were so successful with the seed raising, we have planted rather too many parsnips, as well as, turnips.  We are so happy with our seed raising that we don’t want to abandon the excess plants.

 Our Tuscan kale is growing well, but someone has been picking it wrongly i.e. just tearing the stalks off instead of cutting next to the stem.  The kale is not being given a chance to grow to its full size, it is weakened by trying to repair the torn stems and if the picking like this continues, the plants will not reach their full potential and could possibly die.  As kale is so popular, we will plant some more in the garden next week.

                                                .

 Yesterday, Gordon and Ian finished the work begun by Kate of flattening the area next to the canal.  They laid down weed matting so that we do not have to continually pull out the grass and weeds.  The matting will be weighed down by the crates which will elevate and support the potato growing bags.  We are awaiting the delivery of the organic seed potatoes so we can plant the crop.   We have been topping up our beds with fresh organic soil and have used it all.  We have organic compost in which to plant the potatoes. 

In one of the renewed beds we have sown carrot seeds and the two frames have sugar snap peas.   A few peas have come up and are growing well and each three weeks we will sow more so that we can have continuous cropping.  It is a challenging task to provide enough produce for those who work in the garden.  We try to over-plant and over-feed to get the maximum cropping and we regularly dig in Bokashi mash.

Last week I brought two of our Bokashi bins and emptied them into our large industrial bin and this provided lots of juice.  A regular contributor of Bokashi mash brought down their bin and some juice yesterday.   Dave buried the large bin of Bokashi in bed1 north and after it was covered with soil, we planted carrots there.   Ian dug a trench for the donated Bokashi in the bed that we had clear of grubs.  Next week we will replant some of the Brussels sprouts plants that we removed pending grub clearing and see if they grow any better.  We did not have good luck with our Brussels sprouts last year, so if these fail to thrive, we will replace them with the mini cabbage seedlings that Jan planted before going into hospital and Colin is now lovingly tending.  My pump spray ,which we were using, has died, so we will have to get a new robust, professional one.  We have found that it is false economy to purchase cheap garden implements.  We used some of the money we raised recently to purchase two really good, no kink, hoses which are a joy to use.

Last week, we began an experiment with self sown tomatoes.  Robin potted up a lot of self sown tomatoes found in last season’s tomato beds and even though we do not know which types they are, we are keeping them on the potting table to see if they will survive winter and provide early cropping plants.  It’s a bit of a lucky dip really.

We are still experiencing seedling and plant loss from unsupervised children pulling them out.  We feel like such naggers when we try to get parents of little children to supervise them.  Parents still try to lock their children in the garden, as if it were a fenced play area.  Jan and I are at a loss as to how to prevent this behaviour.  We both, as a former and current teachers, really love children but weresent having to be policewomen.  Any ideas?

We have been most successful in raising seedlings from seeds of Giant of Prague celeriac, a variety dating from 1871, which I purchased on eBay.  At the moment, they have four leaves but are still too tiny to transplant.   Celeriac, for those who do not know it, is a knobbly type of turnip rooted celery.  It tastes like a cross between celery, parsley and potato.  It makes lovely soups, mashes, chips and a really smashing celeriac gratin when sliced thinly and baked in cream.  Another popular use for celeriac is the French salad remoulade which is made from grated celeriac and mayonnaise.  The French can buy prepared remoulade in every corner shop and it is very popular as a salad.

Nigel Slater’s Recipe for Remoulade: 

Peel then shred a medium-sized (450g) celeriac. The shreds should not be too fine, nor should they be thicker than a matchstick. Toss them immediately in the juice of half a lemon. Mix together 4 heaped tbsp of good mayonnaise, 2 tbsp of smooth Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp of double cream or crème fraîche and 2 tbsp of chopped parsley. Season with salt and black pepper, then fold into the shredded celeriac. Set aside for 30 minutes then serve with thin slices of ham.

Toss the shredded roots quickly in lemon juice to stop them discolouring and to tenderise them. The dressing should be just thick enough to cling to the roots – in other words creamy without being soupy. Thin the sauce down with lemon juice if it gets too thick. Cream or crème fraîche sounds extravagant, but is essential if the salad is to be more than just roots in mayo. Don't attempt to keep it overnight. It will become soft and claggy as the celeriac soaks up the dressing. Chop the parsley finely – this is not the time for roughly chopped.

Beetroot remoulade has a more vibrant colour and a mixture of celeriac and beets is good, but should be lightly mixed so as not to turn the dressing raspberry pink. Poppy seeds, sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds make unorthodox but welcome additions, as do chopped toasted walnuts. A lighter dressing can be made using fromage frais instead of crème fraîche.

Try it….you are sure to like it.

Our outside bed has eggplants that are still flowering and as we intend to treat the eggplants as perennials, they will remain in place and we can see how long their bearing season will be.  To survive as perennials they like a winter temperature of 10 degrees or more. One of these plants has had the fruit wrenched off by a non gardener picking wrongly, causing it to die back.  This is a problem.  Eggplants must always be cut away with shears.  Whenever we are watering or in the garden and a local person shows an interest, we offer to pick some herbs or to pick from the outside bed and give them a gift of the herbs or vegetable.  This way we can demonstrate how to cut or pick produce.

The crimson broad beans planted by John in the eastern end of the bed are flowering and it seems that we will have a good crop of broad beans.  The western end of the bed, planted by Niall with crimson broad beans, was planted later and they are not blooming yet.  The rhubarb is steadily growing and later in the year should crop well.  It helps the plant to bear prolifically, if it is not harvested heavily in its first year of growth.

Next week will need to tie up the broad beans to small bamboo stakes and also to tie up our sweet peas which are very spindly but growing well.  The zinnias are finished, as are the cosmos, but we still have some self sown sun flowers.  We kept hundreds of sunflower seeds and hope to use them in the garden, as well as sell them at our annual Spring garden party in October.

Help needed:                       Is anyone able to water the garden on a Tuesday morning or Tuesday during the day?   

ll for now,  I hope to see you in the garden.

Warmest regards,

Carole Baker

Co-ordinator Milson Community Garden.

Hi Everyone,

We had a most productive Sunday gardening session before disaster struck.

The week before, last ( 3^rd April, 2011) we planted the seedlings which we had raised:  sprouting purple broccoli, parsnips, turnips, beetroot and climbing peas.   This weekend we cleared up and tidied the shed (thank you Akiko, Aurelien and Denny) dug in a lot of Bokashi mash into a bed where we hope to plant celeriac.  Thank you to Dave and John J. and what a stinky task it is!)   Special thanks to Kate who cleaned out the industrial Bokashi bin.

The outside perennial bed still has eggplants bearing well, established parsley and rocket and the rhubarb growing sturdier by the day and more self sown sunflowers and Echinacea (cone flowers).  This growth is due to our feeding regime, which is to feed with donated worm juice from friends of the garden who come each Sunday bearing Worm Wee, application of Advance + which contains seaweed extract, blood and bone, chicken manure and lime, as well as rock minerals and Bokashi juice.  Thank you to the volunteers who work on, and water this bed.

We planted Sweet peas to grow outside the fence and to delight us with the perfume in Spring.  Brent planted pansies and primula as infill to provide Winter colour and to supplement the bergamot and marigolds  raised by our Chairperson, Jan Wagshall.

We planted more crimson and Aquadulce broad beans and mulched the outside perennial bed. (crimson broad beans, planted previously by John J. , are about 30 mm high)   We sowed seeds of giant Prague celeriac in seed trays. We planted cabbages, cauliflowers, radishes, more beetroots, pansies, primula, broad beans and leeks.

To plant the leeks, we dug trenches so that we could gradually fill the bed with soil and preclude light from the leeks, thus ensuring smooth long white leeks for winter and Spring harvest.   In the soil which we dug out, there were dozens and dozens of white curl grubs just waiting to eat every root of every plant which we have in our garden beds.  See illustration 2 below.

DISASTER HAD STRUCK !!!!! !!!!! !!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!

It is likely that all our beds are infested and that everything that we have planted and will plant, will be attacked, eaten at the roots and thus our labour will be fruitless.

ration of Cutworm mo

Illustration by EH Zeck.

This is an illustration of Cutworm moth ()

Order reference: cutworm-moth

You are permitted to copy these images for personal or educational use provided the copyright notice and name of the artist is retained.

For some weeks, I have been gazing at the brown grass in Milson Park and pondering why, in a Summer and Autumn characterised by rain, the grass should be dying.   Well, now, I know. White curl grubs, whose eggs were laid by an African beetle had attacked the grass and our beds.  To have uninfected soil is virtually impossible so close to such an infestation as that in the lawn throughout Milson Park. 

“AFRICAN BLACK BEETLE                                                                                           

Crops are damaged by African black beetle, Heteronychus arator, when they are planted into beetle infested former grassland, or alongside infested grassland, or when swarming beetles fly in. The beetles chew the stems of seedlings just below ground level, making a ragged injury, and the plants die. The beetle is about 12 mm long and shiny black and can usually be found in the soil near the damaged plants.

African black beetle is a pest of coastal districts, and is troublesome from late August to November and again from January to March. It breeds mainly in grassland, where the white, soft larvae (‘curl grubs’), with hard brown heads, feed on organic matter and plant roots

in the soil. “  Extract fro Queensland Government Department of Agriculture website.

Of course, our garden is organic, we do not use chemicals and we are limited in remedies for cut worm infestation.

What to do?

My vie is that next Sunday we must carefully dig our all of our plants in each inside bed with the exception of citrus, tamarillos and bay trees.  These plants will need to be gently moved and soaked in ambient temperature water with SeaSol added, whilst we clear their bed.

We must dig out the soil to the depth of two spades depth, go through the soil and manually clear the white cut grubs, and then sieve the soil for the brown eggs.  Hopefully, we will have clean soil in which to replant our seedlings and herbs.   I shall have to hire some sieves, so thank heavens we have some funds from our candlelight dinner.   We will take down the bird wires so that the birds will come into the garden again.  We will reinstate these bird scarers when we have vulnerable produce later in the year.

Here is a selection of suggestions from blogs on the Web.  Personally I am a bit sceptical about these suggestions but desperate to try some.   What do you all think?

Every year cutworms attack our broad beans - 3 rows, say 30 plants per row = 90 plants. 'Just' tuck three toothpicks up tight around each stem? And then wait for the wagon to cart me off to the bin. ;)

Another method is to mix bran with molasses laced with Bt and scatter it in the rows. Or gently dig around damaged plants and pick out the cutworm, although I'm not sure this prevents further damage; does anybody know how often an individual cutworm will feed?

RE: getting rid of cut worms organically

Some bloggers suggest using cardboard or paper collars around each plant…..that’s a lot of toilet roll tubes.  I think that the tooth picks may be a better idea.  I am open to suggestions and advice and I will keep on seeking advice.

As for the outer bed, I am researching to see if there is some other solution which does not require digging out all of the soil.   However, our garden is at risk if Council does not take some action about the lawn infestation.  

Last Sunday we had 14 volunteers and 4 new people who wish to be involved.   This is good.  However, we need as many people as possible to come on this Sunday to tackle this disastrous problem.

Cheers for now,

Carole Baker

Co-ordinator

Milson Commumity Garden

Hi,

Across Australia - over 300 schools, 150 councils, almost 2000 businesses, and 220 government departments across Australia signed up, as well as thousands of individual Australians.

Across the world - a record 134 countries and territories on all 7 continents participated.

Across the social network – globally, Earth Hour dominated as a topic on social networking channels over recent days, with Australian international model Miranda Kerr “hijacking” the Myspace homepage for Earth Hour. YouTube also displayed a customised doodle across the site for Earth Hour, while a light switch appearing above each video allows users to darken the YouTube host page.

At the Earth Hour Awards - as millions of people across the country switched off the lights, Australia’s most inspiring stories of people going beyond the hour were recognised at the official WWF Earth Hour Awards event in Sydney on Saturday night. The finalists in each category were assessed by an expert judging panel, convened by WWF-Australia Governor Greg Bourne and consisting of:

• Dermot O'Gorman, CEO WWF-Australia
• Jamie Durie, Horticulturalist and Landscape Gardener, Earth Hour Australia Ambassador
• Dr Iain MacGill, Associate Professor, School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications UNSW
• Todd Sampson, CEO Leo Burnett Sydney, co-creator of Earth Hour
• Martyn Wilder, Head of Baker and McKenzie Global Environmental Markets and Climate Change practice

And the winners of the Earth Hour Awards were:

The Young Panda Award - Hanan Hassan & Julia Lin, PLC Junior School (Pymble, NSW)

T    The Workplace Champion Award - Benjamin Grimshaw, Hilton Hotel (Sydney, NSW)

The Futuremakers Award - Lloyd Linson-Smith, Inventor (Oakey, QLD)

The Lifetime Achievement Award - Burr Dodd & Lolo Houbein, Trees For Life (Brooklyn Park, SA)

The Education Award - Cate Lawrence, Green Renters (Brunswick, VIC)

The People’s Choice Award – Catherine Lee, The Point Preschool (Oyster Bay, NSW)

Earth Hour pics:

Want to see pics from the event and other Earth Hour scenes from across Australia?

Yes I do!

Then go to our ‘Earth Hour 2011’ Flickr album at http://www.flickr.com/photos/wwfaustralia/

Have you got your own pics?

Yes I do!

Well add them on! (instructions are here - http://www.earthhour.org.au/take-action/how-to-guides/)

Cheers,

Ron

Ron Newton 
Internal Communications Coordinator

WWF-Australia

Hi Everyone,

Our Earth Hour dinner was a fabulous success with forty supporters sitting down to dine by candlelight under the Fig tree near our community garden.   Amongst our diners were the Mayor, Genia McCaffery and her husband Michael Mandl (with their new puppy) and local Councillors, Jillian Christie and Michael (Michel) Reymond.   Such was the enjoyment that they declared that we should host such a dinner each month!   ……………………………….Now steady on.

The magical evening was not only due to those who came and brought their will to have a good time, but to those who contributed.

A massive thank you to:

Kevin Brough who made and donated the lovely Italian eggplant parmigiana,

Sarah Reed, who is our official photographer.

Phoebe Kyriakou who donated ocean trout and vegetables for our feast, and did the shopping.

Aurelien Gaudin and Akiko, Gordon Howlett  and Denny Linker, for set up, Manny Guererro, Nick Ritten who set up and cleaned up afterwards, and Karen Kool for kitchen assistance ,set up and table decorating, Jan Howlett for beautiful candles for the table, Joan Switzer, cake maker extraordinaire  who made the passionfruit cake, packed up and helped serve throughout the evening,  Zoe Baker and  Nette Archer who worked in the kitchen for two days and served all evening and packed up, Miss Eva Campbell (aged 4) for kitchen assistance and service of crudités and bread . Rebecca Guerrero and Dave Millar for serving, clean up and pack up, Kate Wilson for pack up.

Extra thanks to Denny for the huge wash up ton Sunday.

Special thanks to our Weather Forecasters:  Denny, Gordon, Aurelien, Akiko, Nick and Karen.

Extra special thanks to Averil Bones for her entertaining and interesting remarks and for her help in packing up.

We are also grateful to:   Anita from the Sydney Flying Squadron for the loan of plates and the gift of ice, Jenny Devlin from North Sydney Council for arranging the loan of chairs, tables and the marquee. Adele Jones, the Mayor’s assistant, for organising recycling bins

And since my memory may be faulty…………a special thanks to any others I may have overlooked.

Carole Baker,

Milson Community Garden

WHY WE SHOULD GROW HEIRLOOM BROCCOLI.

Below are excerpts from an article in Diggers Club Autumn Garden magazine (we are members of Digger’s Club)

“Why I won’t eat hybrid broccoli”  by Clive Blazey

“If you study the nutritional value of all vegetables, broccoli stands out as the most perfect vegetable.

However, in its modern hybrid form and genetically modified crops, the altered breeding is entirely for the benefit of the breeder and grower and not for us the consumer.

To save labour costs, the breeders enlarged the heads to reduce picking costs – that made the stalks thick, fibrous and partly inedible.

Secondly, by growing this pest prone vegetable during summer and autumn, bought broccoli is literally drenched in chemicals, more than most other vegetables.

Broccoli is part of the Brassica family, like Brussel sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower – even capers and watercress.  They all exude a smell that cabbage moths find irrestible.

That is why it is better to grow you own non-hybrid heirloom broccolis that have succulent stems and smaller heads.  If grown in coller months, it is generally pest free!

BE WARNED:  When you buy broccoli from the supermarket, unless it is organically grown it will be drenched in chemicals during November to April when cabbage moths are destructive”

In  the Milson community Garden, we have sown seeds of Purple Sprouting broccoli in our seed boxes.

Broccoli Growing Information:  from Lou Larrie – Digger’s Vegetable Trial Manager

Sow any month, but to avoid cabbage month it is best to sow March to August

Seedling                             4 – 6 weeks

Seedling to head pick          12 – 13 weeks

Side shoots                        16 – 52 weeks

Yield                                  up to 1.5kg per plant

Other broccoli facts:

Unlike most common hybrid varieties, open pollinated, sprouting broccoli varieties will produce a small more delicately testured central head which can be harvested early in the season.  The heirloom sprouting varieties outperform the hybrids as they produce multiple side shoots which can be picked on a regular basis ove a longer period.  The side shoots are like broccolini with small heads on long, thin, succulent stems.  It is best to harvest the shoots regularly as harvesting prior to flowers opening will extend the harvest period.

Digger’s currently offers these heirloom varieties all of which have their own unique, subtle differences.  Di Cicco is a classic Italian style broccoli which is deep green in colour and has a sweet flavour which might help to entice children into eating it.  Green sprouting is a Calabrese style broccoli with bluish green coloured heads and a deep earthy taste.  Waltham 29 is a great all-rounder with a long harvest period and more robust side picking shoots and Purple Sprouting broccoli.

BROCCOLI PURPLE SPROUTING  Brassica oleracea Unusual purple small heads are followed by delicious side shoots

I hope this information has proved helpful to our gardeners and supporters.

Warmest regards,

Carole Baker

Co-ordinator

Milson Community  Garden.

Last Sunday we had a most productive day. We planted autumn/winter parsnip, broccoli and leek seeds in the seed trays. We also planted crimson broad beans in the outside bed and bergamot and marigolds which we had raised from seeds along the fence. The turnips which were planted a week earlier have all poked their heads above the soil as have the beetroots which we transferred into pots.

It is difficult to judge the watering needs of the beds but we continue to test for moisture and water accordingly. A big thank you to the volunteers on the watering roster.

Deborah Solomon has brought to our attention that we can enter the Royal Easter Show this year. We need six vegetable types, so no more picking of eggplants until we see that we will have enough to enter. We should have sweet corn and we continue to plant lettuce. This week we will plant carrots and feed them up so that we can have a few bunches of baby carrots for the Show.

The Community Garden Section of the Royal Easter Show was abandoned last year, so we were unaware that the competition would be held again this year. It has left us rather short of produce……..but we will see what we can grow in time.

Lately, we have had an increase in enquiries about the garden. More and more people wish to be part of and know about sustainable practices.

This Sunday we are being visited by a group of committed community gardeners from Mosman. They wish to start a community garden in a reserve in Chinaman’s Beach. At first, the Council seemed to welcome the idea and lead them to believe that they had Councillors support but now have failed to vote to allow it. They are a most dedicated Group but it seems that they face an uphill battle.

Last Sunday there was a Mosman community garden protester taking photos of our garden to show to a protest meeting in Mosman tonight. She was adamant that Mosman should not have a garden, she was determined to find fault with our garden. It is so difficult to understand the mindset.

This Friday we are having some more soil delivered to top up the beds. The last pallet did not do the job. Our soil gets depleted in volume because we try to grow so much. Not only regular Bokashi and organic manures are necessary, but regular topping up of soil after the plants have finished harvesting.

Warmest Regards,

Carole Baker

Operations Co-ordinator 
Milson Community Garden

Hi everyone,

This is the photo of the Milson Community Garden which is being featured in print ads and on the Earth Hour 2011 website.

The photographer, Adam has certainly captured the magic of the garden.

Warmest Regards,

Carole Baker

Operations Co-ordinator 
Milson Community Garden

A big morning’s work!

1. Remove all existing mulch in tomato beds in case there are mould spores.
2. Test Soil for moisture, inside and outside gardens – if necessary water with spray wands close to soil. 
3.  Apply Bokashi juice 1:100 with watering cans at soil level.  Try not to wet   leaves as we are trying to avoid creating an environment for mildew spores.
4. Spray sweet corn with success.
5. Mix up Epsom Salts in a bucket of water and apply to soil around the tomatoes.
6. top dress tomatoes with cow manure clear of stems.
7. Tie up tomatoes and pick out laterals (suckers).
8. Build up all beds with new soil and cow manure.
9. Wearing a mask, fluff up lucerne mulch and then mulch 50mm deeparound tomatoes.
10. Wearing a mask, fluff up Lucerne mulch and place 50mm deep over outside bed taking care to leave clearance around all plants especially sunflower seedlings.
11. Place ½ cupful chicken manure around beans taking care not to touch stems.
12. Wearing a mask fluff up lucerne mulch and place around zucchinis.
13. Check if potatoes need digging up and harvest by hand.
14. Gently water seedling trays and strawberries.  Feed with Seasol.
15. In seed, mix plant zinnia seeds and cover with plastic cover to aid germination.
16. Plant peas in far west bed.
17. cover tomatoes with black netting.
18. Plant sweet corn north/west back bed in where some potatoes have been.
19. Tie up cucumbers.