Community Gardening

Even though today was very windy, I cycled out to my garden to get a little bit more done. I was able to nearly finish mixing and filling two more beds (added alpaca manure to these two) and mulch my broad beans and one patch of peas next to the rhubarb I planted yesterday. I've placed sticks over the mulch to stop the birds scratching it onto the ground.  At 3pm the wind picked up and the sky looked rather ominous so I rugged up and cycled home.

Mixing and filling more beds. 

Added pea straw mulch to the rhubarb and peas.

Added pea straw mulch to the broad bean bed.

Community Gardening

The third plot I was offered was an extension of my first garden, so planning it is a lot easier - all I have to do is line up the beds and continue them to the south side of the garden.
Today I finished leveling up the six beds on the western side of the garden. Two days ago I filled and planted up one bed with garlic and bok choy and today I filled two more beds, and planted out the sprouting snow potatoes in one of the beds. These beds had rabbit manure and straw mixed through them.
My nearby gardening neighbour Minh divided her famous rhubarb plants this morning and offered me some, so I've planted it opposite the globe artichoke in the middle archway bed. She also shared this wonderful-looking savoury recipe, Persian lamb with rhubarb and chelow.

Garlic and Bok Choy

Snow potatoes in the corner bed. 

Community Gardening

Three years ago I returned to study fulltime at the University of Canberra and have just completed a Bachelor of Heritage, Museums and Conservation majoring in Conservation. A year ago my life went completely topsy turvy caring for my elderly parents. Coping with the stress was hard, and I found the only way to cope was to garden, so I joined a local community garden and got started. Literally - I was given a 50 square metre patch of rock hard clay, so I put in raised beds and built it up. My journey was documented on my facebook page and consumed a lot of my life. In January this year I applied for some more land so I could grow potatoes and sweetcorn, in March I was offered a plot and then refused a plot. So began another nightmare, this time dealing with community garden internal politics. In July I was finally offered two lots of 25 square metres of land, accepted them and made a late start trying to get all my raised beds ready for Spring. I am still trying to get the new garden ready, Spring has arrived, and the politics haven't stopped. Hopefully, with an AGM at the end of this month, I might see a return to a normal community garden.

Documentation of Plot 2: My Extension of 12 Raised Beds

These beds are filled with a mix of 1/3 vermiculite, 1/3 cocopeat and 1/3 mixed compost and manure. I have to be careful what I plant because some of the beds contain horse manure that has not been hot composted or aged for 12 months. I've read that potatoes can get blight if planted with fresh-ish horse manure so am planting them up in my other beds which contain more soil.

Compost from my tumbler

Mixing compost with cocopeat and vermiculite.

Planting some young rosemary plants.

Weedmat pathways.

Barley straw on the weedmat until I can bring in some sawdust.

I organised the delivery and sale of a truckload of straw.