Visitation Grows

News Update

It's not just Camden residents noticing our local community gardens anymore, as mentioned in an earlier post traffic has been coming from all corners of the globe and the gardens are becoming recognised internationally as well.

Just some of the group visiting on sunday.

This past week or so has seen several groups contact the Community Gardens, one such group was the Asian Women at Work Program who through their Community Worker coordinated a group visit with over 70 individuals in attendance, the group comprised mums, dads and kids and all enjoyed approximately 2hrs in the gardens, Publicity Officer and Secretary for the Gardens Stephen Cooper was on hand to give a talk to all concerned about the gardens and the site within which it is contained.

Farm Fresh Tours are also looking forward to having the Community Gardens feature in their program see Farm Fresh Tour for details of their next tour.

The coming week will also see a group visit from Holroyd Garden Club and their members, the Community Gardens Committee look forward and thank the groups who have already and who plan on enjoying the fruits of our labour.

Winter Harvest at Camden Community Garden.

No chunkin these punkins (search Punkin Chunkin)

Just some of the crew that turned up on sunday.

Its only a matter of time before above mentioned beloved american past time hits our shores but for now while pumpkins are in plentiful supply we will be eating them and sharing them amongst the gardeners, the picture right was the result of a harvest last weekend, and that giant golden object was a golden zucchini that escaped the pot and put on a few pounds before we found it.

The gardening bee was a massive success with all concerned leaving with pumpkins for home, over coming weekends more will be harvested and given out, thanks to everyone that participated, almost 20 volunteers turned up as well as visitors from across the Campbelltown LGA and Penrith.

Platypus spotted at Camden Town Farm

The Garden Grows

If you haven't wandered down Exeter Street in recent years you would have missed a growing community, and more accurately our growing Community Garden, if you wondered how the transformation has taken place below is something of a snapshot of before and after so far.

Camden Town Farm Community Garden May 2010

Camden Town Farm Community Garden April 2012

Here comes the Winter Chill

Shallots and beetroot

Noticed the mornings are getting cooler, extra doona on the bed on a morning, going to work with a few more clothes on, spare a thought for your plants outside. Check the link Camden Weather, April saw our average lowest temp sitting around 11.3C while mean highest was 23.6C. May so far is looking cooler with a pretty sharp dip so far with the lowest averaging just over 6C and the mean highest dipping marginally lower to just under 22C.

protection from frost

It may be time to start and try a bit of frost proofing, another month and the basil crop will be dead, if we are lucky we will get 6 weeks out of it, it may be time to try that Bunya Pine nut pesto here, thinking about putting potatoes in, it may be worth waiting now, speaking to a southern highlands grower (you will find him via bigspud.net) his tips were 100 days before the first frost and 3 weeks before the last frost. So if you have planted them recently, either hope for a late frost to get those new potatoes or baby poly tunnels and lots of mulch to keep them warm.