Changing Seasons

This Update

• Camden News
• Seasonal Vegetables
• Surplus.

Camden Town Farm Community Garden

Image thanks to Troy Newman

The present weather conditons have been an absolute godsend to the community gardens, forget drugs in sport, if only these sports folk could harness the stuff going into our vegetables they wouldn't be in the strife they are. Zucchinis only look like they are on steroids, squash as pictued previous are the size of dinner plates and beans seem to be multiplying overnite. With this growth comes change though, we now find ourselves on the down hill run into winter, but with a huge growing season ahead of us, autumn will certainly be a time for growth, pumpkins starved of rain early are now growing overnight and putting some serious metres onto their vines, sweet potatoes are going just as well. The weather has also helped our herb garden immensely and the local produce markets have been a great source of funds for the garden with fresh herbs being sold at the last few markets, the rosemary has been hugely popular given that it produces great skewers for lamb about 20-30cm long, thanks to volunteers Hazel, Georgia, Steve and Charlotte that have been involved so far. The stall certainly couldnt be done without their help.

Camden Show hits town this week and the ovals are being filled with marquees all week, Camden Community Garden is working in with Macarthur Centre for Sustainable Living and a Kids interactive display so if you are visiting why not stop in and say hello. Thanks to the volunteers who have put up their hands so far. I also hear that Sunrise is broadcasting from there on wednesday morning, i suspect its the weather as in previous years.

Some more workshops are scheduled over the next month with 3 booked in so far, 5th of April, 17th and 19th April, all are for children 6-12, call 46455006 to book in, the next workshop for the big kids, (the rest of us) will be a permaculture workshop, with the date being currently organised. Stay Tuned.

On the build front, if you have visited lately some works are being finished off, the old barn is getting something off a refit, a new roof should be going on over coming weeks as well as an extension by way of a skillion off the airport side, this will also give us a great shelter and new venue to work under. The area around the raised beds is getting a similar treatment to the paths and will be accessible to wheechairs over coming weeks, the path down the hill is also being finished off as it stopped short, this will clean the area up considerably. We are also currently waiting on quotes to come in for the floor area around the 2 sheds and its also hoped some large compost bays should also be installed soon.

Seasonal Veggie time

Tomatoes are on their way out if not already gone and beans may only have another couple of months in them, if you dont have them in it may be almost too late, especially if we get an early frost at the farm. Speaking to Norman from The Big Spud at Robertson its time to get another crop of potatoes in, ideally we want about 100 - 120 days before the first frost to get them in the ground, if we miss this window then we will be waiting till mid/late september in order to get our chistmas spuds in. As beans and tomatoes come in its time to get broad beans in with peas, cabbages, broccoli and caulis, check out Gardenate.com for more great info, remembering we are borderline, cool mountain/temperate zone.

 

Surplus

If your like the majority of gardeners you have put a whole packet of beans in and now getting a bit tired of them, succession planting is the best way to go in that you have 3 or 4 plants going in every few weeks, but if not there are a myriad of ways to carry over that surplus season stuff, from pickling beetroot, to blanching beans, as far as peas go i have just podded them and frozen them fresh, chillis as long as they are little fellas freeze well also, doing this sort of thing helps take advantage of those excesses and helps you avoid paying the higher prices at the supermarket when the produce is out of season here and has to to shipped in from Kenya, South America or China, (beans, bananas, berries). If you are buying frozen veg, check its origin, and google food laundering, a very hot topic at the moment where by produce hits our shores via other markets. Check our links pages for some great resources and spread the word about our garden.

 

Enjoy.

 

Tropical Camden

Camden gone tropical

This update contains:

• Heat waves and floods                
• Goings on in the garden
• Past and upcoming events
• Veggies to plant now

Heatwaves and flooding rain

Little Sandy underwater again.

Only a week ago we were staring down the barrel of drought, feed cut on the town farm and baled months ago was now in high demand and the lagoon which looks a bit like a dinosaur or a Sea World sea lion was receeding rapidly. The lagoon is now full, the feral goats are munching on the new lucerne sprigs down buy the river, Zucchinis are growing before our eyes and the front lawn of the community garden could be almost baled as well. If you want to see the crazy weather figures including 125mm of rain in one hit and 46.4 degrees C click on the following link. www.bom.gov.au

Goings on

New garden beds.

We can't say it wasn't a relief to see some rain, watering constantly and wisely had been quite tough in the community gardens in the oppressive heat, so some deep soaking rain was very welcome, this came luckily only a week after the working bee which in turn was a couple of days after the 46.4 temp reached in camden, so we escaped both extremes, the gardening bee had a good turnout with approx 15 folk attending on the day, it turned into soemthing of a construction day with several new garden beds being built from the sleepers delivered in the days prior, these beds are now starting to fill the head of the platypus out, a tool shed (currently held at the council depot) will mahe up the other eye of the platypus once a base goes down, (over the next 2 weeks), also on the day some curved beds were finished off, as well as native seedlings potted up, some vacant beds also were cleared ready for the new folk and the lawns mowed. Potatoes are still being harvested and another delivery will go to Narellan Congregational Community Service next week with i dare say some squash or zucchinis. A big thankyou to all in attendance as well as the guys that turned up to volunteer at our stall at the produce markets, the funds raised went back into the Community Gardens and fed the troops at the working bee.