Growing Season

  June Update

• 

  Pumpkin time.

  Update - Reduce Landfill.

• Community Builders and works in the garden.

• Thankyou.

• Working Bees and becoming involved.

• Autumn has gradually descended into Winter in the gardens, trees along Exeter St have going through a bit of a change, the Eucalypts seemed to have recovered from what ever ailments they had. The gardens are green and veggie beds are producing. In summary April was pretty big in the end, with 4 workshops running that engaged over 60 school aged and preschoolers, not including the accompanying mums dads and grandparents, thanks to our volunteers engaged in running these. On the horizon the gardens will be running more of these and in partnership with Camden Council and through Reduce Landfill will deliver these to the community over the coming months.The Reduce Landfill site is a great opportunity for residents who cannot get to the gardens for a workshop to improve their own knowledge of things brown and green and beyond. The weather has made its mark with the sudden deluge of winter rains being of great benefit to the Community Garden, a newly reinstated water tank is now full and will supplement our current water supply and be used to water our natives and greenhouse herbs.

• July sees the Community Builders funding come to an end which the Community Gardens gained back

  

  Raised garden beds.

  in 2010, this funding was a huge boost to the gardens, allowing many aspects of the garden to gain some attention. Infrastructure has had a great boost, with accessible pathways added connecting through to the toilets on the Town Farm site, raised garden beds for seniors and disability groups have been installed, these are now being accessed by the likes of Macarthur Disability Services and Narellan Congregational Community Services, also involved in the garden are Wesley Disability Services and Roam Mental Health. Its been great to see all these guys and girls in the garden. The funding also allowed the gardens to reach out into the community with raised garden beds installed into 2 Macarthur Disability Services houses as well as Macarthur District Temporary Family Care. This was also facilitated through the assistance of the University of Sydney at Cobbitty. As well as the connecting accessible pathways, the entrance to the gardens has been updated. Back in August 2010 with the aid of the founding garden committee members a memorial garden was established with  roses donated by members of  the public. This was done in honour of Miss Llewella Davies whos bequest was the foundation of the garden. This rose garden is now formalised and accessible to wheelchairs, seating has been retained and the old post and rail fencing further enhanced. If you are an avid gardener and wish to share your passion for roses please contact us through the webiste homepage. The old barn adjacent to the gardens is almost complete, this is a great asset to the Town Farm site and will prove to be a valuable community resource, some final earthworks are being finished off over coming weeks, this will then provide accessible shelter to members and guests of the Community Garden as well as a venue for the Town Farm to use.

  

  Camden Mens Shed helping out.

• A big thankyou has to go to all concerned with gardens, thus far we estimate in excess of 1500hrs of volunteer work has gone into the garden per year and without that help that early vision would not be realised today. Thanks to the local mens shed for their assistance in constructing a storage area for the shared zero turn. 
• The Community Gardens next working bee is Sunday July 21st, everyone is welcome, any non members wishing to attend can get involved, take some fresh herbs home, meet some great people and enjoy a freindly BBQ, all for the pricely sum of $4 and that covers your membership for the next 12 months. The working bee kicks off at 9-9.30am.

Final word goes out to gardeners/supporters/members/friends/suppliers/stakeholders in wishing the Community Gardens all the best wishes in the upcoming Keep Australia Beautiful Sustainable Cities Awards, the Community Gardens are entered in the Sustainable Community Gardens Section. Thankyou to everyone in working towards this and thanks to Keep Australia Beautiful and their guidance. Find out more by following the links to Keep Australia Beautiful on the Useful Links Page.