Narellan Rhythms, The Gardens, and everything else.

Alot has happened over the last month, this update includes Working Bee, Narellan Rhythms, Happenings in the Garden, The Veggie Lady and snakes.

Steve at the Community Gardens stand.

• Narellan Rhythms - This was a chance to get some more information out about the Community Gardens, over the 6 weeks leading up to the street festival i had grown in excess of 400 pockets of herbs, covering coriander, basil (many types) italian parsley, daikon radish and Pak Choy, on the day with the help of a young helper i set up 2 garden beds adjacent to the Library, with asian and italian themed plants, (Thanks have to go to the folk at Patio Plants, you will find their huge range of plants on sale at the produce markets every 4th saturday at Camden Town Farm), we displayed information about the gardens and gave away all our plants over the course of the day, while surrounded by the Scarecrows that were built at the Scarecrows and Sculptures Workshop. Lots of info was on hand and this was complemented by the councils own enviromental team who were giving away native plants also.
• The last working bee was a great success with a few hundred new rosemary bushes going in, a big thankyou to Colin Mills who organised the cultivation of these and these will be going in over a period of time, also thanks to all those that attended.

• As mentioned in previous posts The Veggie Lady is on board and spots are filling fast, gardeners have been sent details and we will keep you updated on Tonis progress and her courses, for more info check out the previous posts.



New pathwork in Progress

• Construction Time, it probably seems like we have been talking about this for a while, but its now underway. Making our gardens accessible to all parts of the community is paramount and within a couple of weeks it should be finished, the contractors are aware these gardens are operating. Please be mindful of the works taking place and if possible adjust your visits accordingly, unfortunately some casualties have been experienced but flora only, due to the nature of the machinery on site some of our new rosemary hedge suffered, some committee members have been onsite and tried to keep any colateral damage to a minimum and repair damage done. At this stage the crushed road base is down and the path edging is going in, this will help to confine the path, over the next couple of days the path will be topped with crushed granite and compacted, this will give a hard durable surface and help keep maintanence costs and upkeep to a minimum, the linking path to the toilets and the concrete set down area will also be done at the same time. We will keep you updated on progress, watch this space.



Brown Snake trapped in netting

• Snakes, its that time of the year and we do ask gardeners to be on the lookout for snakes, the following link has some useful info Aussie Snakes if you encounter a snake as one committee member did a couple of weeks ago you can call Wires on 13000 WIRES or  1300 094 737 or Sydney Wildlife on 9413 4300, both these organisations can organise collection of injured or trapped snakes, unfortunately the snake pictured (an eastern brown) was trapped in some netting behind plot #8, Wires took him away. We are sharing the land with these guys and they aren't going to go away but by keeping rubbish and plots relatively clean we shouldn't have to many problems, the snake of question was covered up with a large box and flagged with hazard tape, in future if you see yellow and black hazard tape anywhere on site it will mark a trapped snake. The box (marked SNAKE) covering this one protected it from attack by birds and prevented it cooking in the midday sun as well as putting a barrier between us and it as you can imagine he wasn't happy. FYI of the worlds most venomous we have the top 11, and the eastern brown is about #2.

On a final note thankyou to all that took part in the AGM, to the outgoing committee thanks for all work done over the past year to the incoming committe we welcome you all as listed below,

• President - Jeff Ferrif
• Vice President/Public Officer - David Buckley
• Secretary/Publicity Officer - Steve Cooper
• Treasurer - Louise Mckenna
• Ordinary Members - Graham Roberts, Ray Monahan, Jodie Richardson-Harris, Janet Stait-Gardner, Annette Arany.

Happy Gardening - Steve