Welcome to "The Veggie Lady"

I would like to take the opportunity to welcome onboard our new "blogger"  and green thumb extraordinare, Toni Salter, Toni will be conducting our "Summer Gardening Series" training courses to be held on the first Saturday of the month starting in December, but first a little about Toni.

Toni Salter is The Veggie Lady. She has a passion to see organic principles adopted by everyone. She has helped hundreds of people, just like you, grow great tasting, healthy food in their own backyards – from inner city balconies to those living on acres and everything in-between.

As a qualified horticulturist, Toni has been teaching community education classes both privately, at her home, as well as through various community colleges and local councils around Sydney since 2003. She is a member of the Australian Institute of Horticulture (MAIH).

She has also featured as a talk-back guest on ABC Radio helping gardeners solve their gardening problems organically. To help as many people as she can, The Veggie Lady has developed on-line information, resources and iphone apps to help the general public to grow their own at www.theveggieclub.com
She is a regular contributor to Miranda Kerr’s blog – http://www.koraorganics.com/blog/author/theveggielady/ and events such as the the Organic Expo and Masterchef Live.

Toni also spends her time running horticultural therapy programs, developing sensory gardens through a number of organisations including AFFORD (Australian Foundation For Disability).

To find out more and how Toni puts it went from "insufficient to self sufficient" click on The Veggie Lady.

About the courses, the courses will be open to all Plot Holders and Community Garden Association members, at this stage, there will also be a nominal fee charged which will be advised over the coming weeks to those interested, to register interest text your contact details to me via the contact number on the front, or email me via this link

Course Details as follows -

Venue - Miss Llewella Davies Camden Town Farm Community Gardens

Summer Gardening Workshop - Saturday December 3rd, 10am-12 noon.

Summer is a busy time in the garden so let your hard work reap rewards for you over the holiday break.

This workshop will show you

* waterproofing techniques to save your crop from drought, 

* holiday resourcefulness to keep plants alive while you're on holiday,

* basic pest and disease control when your garden needs it most.

Composting Workshop - Saturday January 7th, 10am-12 noon.

Have you tried to make compost to simply end up with only a smelly, seething mess heap that's not fit for anyone's garden?

Well this workshop will show you how to do it properly!  Second half involves hands-on construction of compost for the town farm community garden. 

Topics covered will include: 

* types of bins and bays to use, 

* layering a compost heap for effective results,

* choosing aerobic vs anaerobic methods of composting.

* hands-on practical opportunity (weather permitting)

See you all soon

Happy Gardening Steve

Cow - moo - nity News form the Gardens

Exciting times are ahead in the gardens, news in brief:

• Working bee - Call to arms, mass border rosemary planting.
• Scarecrows and Sculptures
• Pathwork to begin soon
• Narellan Rhythms
• Welcome new gardeners

• First off the bat this weekend will see a working bee on saturday invade the garden like ants or little worker bees, a call to arms is being put out to gardeners and a big thankyou goes out to Colin Mills and the team of volunteers he enlisted who have been quietly cultivating several hundred, (close to 1700 i think) rosemary bushes, these will be a main feature and form a hedge to surround the Platypus  and border our pathwork (near map the gardens and you will see what we mean). Anyone interested in helping out there will also be a free BBQ lunch on and refreshments, gardens open from 9am for working bee.

• A big thankyou to Freya Jobbins, who facilitated the Scarecrows and Sculptures Workshop at the gardens on the 28th and 29th of September, all concerned had a great couple of days, although the weather did dampen spirits on the thursday forcing a change of venue to Camden Civic Centre, our nonnas and asian gardeners made a special appearance at the ArtStart Festival at Bankstown and will reappear at the Narellan Rhythms Festival and will then take up residence in the community gardens.

• The main pathwork and disability access will commence over the coming weeks with approval for the first stage of the pathwork being approved at the November Committe meeting, the contractors are aware that these are an operating community garden and will not be closed, but as such we would like to request that once works begin that you please be mindful of them going on, this pathwork has been crucial for greater access to disability groups and as such will form a linking path back to the set down area near the barn as well as the toilets located on the town farm site.

• Narellan Rhythms Festival is coming up, it takes place on the 29th of October, Camden Council will be giving away native plants to the public, getting their own faces out there as well The Community Garden will be running its own giveaway, the committee have over the past 5 weeks grown several hundred seedlings to give away, these include Bok Choy, Basil, Daikon Radish, Coriander and all being well Italian Parsley, (its just grown a bit slower than anticipated, note for next year). The festival gets under way at 10.30 am on Elyard St Narellan, there is plenty to get involved with, not to mention the Pizza Chef Relay @ 2.30pm, more info can be found on the Camden Council site here. Anyone interested in helping out on the day with the giving the seedlings please let me know via the contact details on the home page.

• Welcome to our new gardeners, Lachlan and Joshua Newman join our young rank of avid gardeners, Tash, Jai, Tali, Gabrielle, and Warwick, also welcome to Hazel, Kristine and Mike.