21 February

Twenty-seven members and one child worked in the garden on Sunday. We picked our first 2 dragon fruit along with snake and bush beans, okra, tamarillos, warrigal greens, eggplant, rocket, basil, tomatoes, chillies, chicory, lima beans, purslane, cucumbers, zucchini and sorrel.

We sowed our saved seeds of land cress, mizuna, rocket and parsley. We saved more sunflower seeds for next spring.

Ebony and her daughter Josie joined the garden on Sunday. We welcomed them. She is a potter in the Kil’n’it ceramic studio collective located in the building behind our Kitchen garden. Lucy re-joined the garden after a break and we welcome her back. With her Italian background she loves to cook with the chicory that has self-sown in her absence – an inspiration to us all who shy away from the rather bitter common sword-leaf chicory.

Thanks to Natasha for baking a “wedding” cake for Eva and Tim. It was much enjoyed by all at our morning tea.

If you are interested in learning more about gardening than what we provide the Sydney City Farm has free workshops on gardening every couple of weeks. As a volunteer there you would learn from an expert horticulturist.

https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/farm-fridays-working-bee

Closer to home the Pocket City Farm in Camperdown is looking for volunteers who will be trained by their horticulturist. https://www.pocketcityfarms.com.au/volunteer

14 February

As the song goes “Love Is In The Air” as does our garden. Members Eva and Tim had their wedding photos taken in the garden during the week. One of the beautiful photos is below:

Sixteen members worked in the garden on Sunday. We harvested bush and snake beans, lima beans, last of the cucumbers, okra, purslane, warrigal greens, eggplants, parsley, basil, chillies, tamarillos, zucchini and Tahitian limes. We dug out tree roots that had invaded bed 5.

The Council is running two Native Bee workshops next Wednesday 24^th Feb. Jenny has informed me that attendance is limited because of COVID to community gardeners that don’t have bees in their gardens but there are some places remaining. Let me know if you want to attend a morning or afternoon session. Francisco, a researcher from the University of Sydney will present the workshop and will split a hive. Yesterday Francisco opened our hive to see if it was ready for splitting but unfortunately our bees, though healthy, have underperformed and not yet filled the hive with honey, pollen and brood.

Also during the week Michael and Jock were invited by one of our former members, Barbara, to visit Mosman Mackie Lane community garden where she is a member.

http://mosmancommunitygardeners.blogspot.com/p/mackie-lane-garden.html

We were welcomed by other members and shown around their beautiful and productive garden. It is a communal garden like ours but on Ausgrid not Council land and secure behind a high fence. It is much larger than ours and has a rotunda from meetings and social gatherings, solar power supply and large storage sheds (and a dunny). We gained information on their wicking beds and how they operated and we swapped stories on successes and failures. Interaction with other community gardens is well worthwhile and we look forward to a return visit to our garden by the Mosman group.

Botanic Gardens tomato festival has some free virtual events online that are of interest:

https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/Visit/Tomato-Festival-2021

The Botanic Gardens Community Greening program has requested community gardeners give them feedback by completing their annual survey. It can be found at

https://www.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/learn/community-greening

The shed has a new lock with the same combination.

7 February

Twenty-six members worked in the garden on Sunday. It was mostly a case of removing spent plants and tidying up the paths. We removed the tomatoes and beans after a final harvest.

The modest harvest consisted of bush beans, climbing beans and snake beans, tomatoes, okra, cucumbers, rhubarb, double beans (lima beans), basil, sorrel, chillies and some greens (rocket and mizuna).

At our meeting we finalised the order for seeds to plant over the next few weeks once we replenish the soil with compost.