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.

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

Miss Llewella Camden Town Farm Community Gardens

Camden Community Garden

The gardens would like to put a call out for volunteers, do you have a keen interest in gardening! or do you just like being outside, freinds and members of The Miss Llewella Davies Camden Town Farm Community Gardens meet up every month for a free BBQ, the 3rd sunday at 40 Exeter St Camden. The next one is this Sunday the 18th of March.

This is a chance for anyone interested from the general community to exchange ideas, (OK maybe pull a few weeds) see what everyone is growing and just have a general catch up. The gardens are wheelchair accessible and have toilet facilities on site, dogs need to be leashed and children supervised, the gardens are open sunrise to sunset for inspection, produce is available in the form of herbs at the produce markets every second saturday and funds from these go back to the gardens in one step towards making it more self funded.

Pathwork, National Green Jobs, Mayor visits and Christmas is coming.

Just over two weeks ago we had an overgrown path, countless hours had been spent keeping the path under control, it had restricted access to certain sectors of the community and put a strain on volunteers working in the gardens , well fast forward to today and there is a marked difference, the new pathwork will now allow access for all to the gardens as well as giving much needed disability access to the amenities block on the Town Farm site as well. Maintanence has been reduced and that valuable volunteer time can now be spent on other projects in the pipeline, due to the choice of materials maintanence and upkeep costs should be minimalistic and help enable the community gardens to be self funding beyond the life of the Community Builders funding keeping it as a valuable resource for the community.

Other projects in the pipeline include a nursery and rotunda/covered meeting point, and an orchard which is in the early stage of planting. The resident animals on site are doing a great job keeping our weeds under control and should soon be joined by chickens, thanks to the National Green Jobs Project and its participants who built the chicken coup. While on site these young people also completed tree planting and alot of privet removal around the Town Farm precinct as well as Bicentential Equestrian Park and for that we are all very greatful.

Did someone say Winter !!

Visiting the Camden Community Garden at the moment one could easily be fooled into thinking it wasn't winter. Talking to a fellow gardener over the weekend we both agreed had we been on an alottment in the UK in the middle of winter all we would be growing is grey hair :).

The benefits of the Community Gardens are many and varied the main benefit being the the social/sense of community aspect for members of the garden and public alike who can use or visit the gardens during daylight hours, certainly pay the gardens a visit and say hello to any gardeners working away, there is the communial benefit whereby the whole community gains from having such a great resource at their back door, and as it develops/grows this will only become more evident.

An added benefit but by no means the driving force in being a part of this is the monetary benefit, in the latter years from the outside the site seemed to be sitting quietly waiting for a new lease of life, that new lease on life has been established by the Town Farm Committee and the Community Gardens Committee, and with the tireless help of its members, volunteers and gardeners blossomed into a valuable council asset, this certainly has been helped along and funded by Human Services through Family and Community Services Community Builders Program and with the support of Camden Council.

Take yourself to the shops for your regular food shop each week and the potential benefit to your hip pocket is also evident, take the following in season vegetables as a rough idea:

• Buk Choy - $1.96 for 3
• Kale - $2.98 for 175g
• Leeks - $2.38 ea
• Shallots - $2.48 a bunch
• Herbs - $2.45 a bunch
• Red Cabbage - $4.98 ea
• Cabbage - $3.98 ea
• Wombok - Chinese Cabbage - $2.98 ea
• Lettuce - $1.98 ea
• Fennel - $1.78 ea
• Parsnips - $9.98 kg
• Swedes - $2.98 kg
• Spinach - $3.98 a bunch
• Pak Choy - $1.96  for 3

While its true the gardens are a valuable resource to the local communtiy and various groups, with the impending infrastructure work to be done over the coming months the gardens should cement themselves as a focal point for many folk and give visitors to the area something to admire and take home thoughts of.

This faciltiy is unique and the historical significance is of major importance, the property is listed on the State Heritage Register and as such careful consideration goes into the developement of the gardens.

Tasks on the horizon include pathwork from Camden Town Farm and through the gardens, construction of raised beds for aged as well as greater disability access, planting of more herbs, weed matting the borders, improvements to the composting, addition of worm farms, an orchard, also on the plans is a covered area for folk to gather and enjoy as well as a nursery/greenhouse to grow/propagate plants for the garden and potentially the community. Its hoped that not only this generation but generations to come will be proud to be associated with this facility and preserving the facility that Miss Llewella Davies left for the Community.

Happy Gardening