It was a cloudy but fine morning and 22 adults and one child came to work in the garden, including Hana, a new member.
An action shot of the garden from today is below.
Snapshot
Watering was the main job, along with some weeding. There are quite a few seedlings from seeds in the compost and these seedlings need to be removed.
Harvest
A variety of greens was harvested: silverbeet, kale, mizuna, tatsoi, ruby streaks, golden streaks, lettuce (Lollo Rossa, Green Cos, Amish Deer Tongue), rocket, chickory and sorrel. We also harvested rhubarb, celery, Daikon radish, kohlrabi (only one plant developed a bulb), carrots, asparagus, garlic, dill and curry leaves.
Sowing and planting
There were a few sowing and planting jobs to be done: sowing zucchinis, cucumbers, rosellas, rockmelons; resowing okra; planting lettuce and basil seedlings people had pricked out and potted up a couple of weeks ago, French tarragon and eggplant. What wasn’t done from that list will be done next week.
Advanced chilli plants, donated by Thi, were planted, as seedlings had not developed well.
Parsley is in short supply at the moment and any parsley seedlings were moved to the edges of beds.
Special mention
Powdery mildew is starting to infect the brassicas (rocket and mizuna). These plants need to be harvested (harvest the whole plant), keeping the healthy leaves and throwing the infected leaves in the green bin.
Tatsoi and celery are going to seed and won’t last long. As plants go to seed, they lose their palatability. Whole tatsoi plants can be harvested.
Floris, the urban agriculture researcher from Sydney University, brought a video camera and recorded comments from those willing to say a few words about what the garden means to them. The clips will be edited to make a video for the urban agriculture event at the University on 18th November. The clips also have some great material for our social media pages, which are in the making.
Looking into one of the compost bins revealed an amazing sight (photo below).
(Credit: Floris, USyd)
Coming up in the garden
What’s literally coming up in the garden is ginger! There are a few shoots in the beds and new tubs and also in the patch of ground where it was planted.
St Helen's Community Garden 