Garden update - August

The past month has seen a little break in garden activities. With very chilly starts and less than 10 hours of sunlight day-length we took a break from regular weekly garden sessions for July. For August and onwards we are back in the garden each Thursday 9.30-11am in term time - a no pressure and informal drop in session to ‘come and try’, whether you’re a seasoned gardener looking for connection, a newbie looking for answers or simply wanting some soil to dig in we’d love to see you there!

What’s growing in the garden?

While the growth rate is slow this time of year there are still things going on in the patch. Broad beans are at different stages of growth and the seeds from our ‘Festive Fava’ seed adaption project have burst from the soil. This is an exciting, and colourful, experimentation in seed adaption with the goal to select for colourfully flowered broad bean seeds. We were generously gifted some seeds from Gregg at Useful Seeds (https://www.usefulseeds.com/) to play with in the garden - look for updates on this project come spring.

And speaking of spring, that will be the focus of our next month's efforts in the garden. Particularly planning and seeding crops for planting out. We’ll begin with cold tolerant crops like lettuce, stir-fry greens, coriander and radishes before diving in deep later in the month and putting the greenhouse to good use with cold sensitive crops that need a long lead in time like tomatoes, capsicum and eggplant. My anticipation is building already!! For more information on ‘what to plant’ check out our Canberra Gardener’s Calendar in our online shop.

Another exciting thing coming up in the Community garden space is the continuation of our Food Forest plans. Bare rooted trees have been ordered, soil is soaking in the water from our swale put in back in May and perennials shrubs are at the ready. Dr Cally Brennan will be leading us in breaking ground via a Backyard Food Forest workshop later this month where we’ll be learning about and putting into practice both knowledge and skills in this interactive workshop. Grab your spot here (https://www.canberraenvironment.org/events/backyard-food-forests).

If you’re ready to emerge from winter hibernation and get back into the garden then come and join us for a drop in session or a garden workshop. Hope to connect with you there.