Tag Archives: urban gardening

CERES, Community Gardens, Flower Beds, Foyer Food, Guerilla Gardening, Harvest, Kickstarter, Permaculture, Small Space Produce, The Flats, Time to eat!!, Urban Gardening

14 Days to go

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Community Gardens, Guerilla Gardening, Permaculture, Propagation, The Flats, Worm Farm

The Raid

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Today my friends Dad donated more to gardening efforts than a kick starter project could ever hope to achieve.
Chris and Trish are moving out of their awesome home and today I was let loose on the garden…

Chris filled my car with buckets of nutrients,  compost and castings plus a foam box of about 10000 worms!

His garden was so awesome I was a bit overwhelmed. …

I took some cuttings of many different Hebes, and a white hibiscus (I think I messed this up- I took ‘softwood’ but think I should have taken  a ‘heel’ in the cutting.

Chris has amazing Helebores! So many patches that are flowering like crazy- beautiful greens and rust colored varieties.
I was so overwhelmed I forgot to dig up couple of clumps. … hopefully i might be able to go back in the he next few days and take some clumps. 
They move out this week so I may have missed my only opportunity 😦

Helebores or not, Chris’s contributions will give me enough cuttings and supplies to help create a new patch here at the flats and help make more people smile:-)

Thanks again Reardon Family

Pics tomorrow of worms and cuttings being planted out. ..

Community Gardens, Harvest, Produce, Radishes, Silverbeet / Chard, Small Space Produce, Urban Gardening

Radishes from the East

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The first offerings from the East side strip.
That’s why I love growing radish… you get to share the rewards nice and quickly 😉

Happy to say all the radishes have been taken!

One of the residents thanked me for the Silverbeet today, its nice to know that people appreciate the garden on any level.
I hope that by summer, some if the residents will be engaged enough to contribute to garden design (or even maintenance if im lucky hahaha)

Community Gardens, Guerilla Gardening, My Plot, Ornamentals, Small Space Produce, The East Side, The Flats, Urban Gardening

Shameless /kickstarter

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The new east side strip has been a success in many ways:

  • All the seeds have sprouted
  • The productive end has already given us Radishes and Rocket!
  • The Residents of Mitchell Mews now stop and chat!

With this success in mind, I’d really like to reclaim the garden near the fence on the eastern side. Continue reading Shameless /kickstarter →

CERES, Community Gardens, Permaculture, Urban Gardening

Volunteering at CERES!

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Site Gardener at the Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies

Ive just been accepted as a ‘Site Gardener’ Volunteer at CERES. (Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies)

CERES is awesome, and I’m so lucky to have it close by in Brunswick. Ive mentioned CERES before.

Here’s what I signed up for: Continue reading Volunteering at CERES! →

Diggers Club, Tips and Tricks, Urban Gardening

Diggers club – review

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Let me start by saying that i just bought 5 year upgrade to my membership. I want to try to be balanced and objective in my review.

I renewed my membership for 5 years because:

  • I love the philosophy of these guys. Old is new again. Im a fan of anything ‘Heirloom’
  • The standards they adhere to are second to none.  From the Diggers website: “Multinational chemical companies, like Monsanto, can now introduce chemicals into our food supply (ie: G.M. seeds), which threatens our health and the existence of our best plant varieties.”  Im glad to know i can get non GM and even certified organic seed from Diggers
  • Mail Order Plants – Need i say more?? it is really cool getting a parcel that is marked ‘Live plants’ (the only thing better is when the stamp says ‘live animals’! i own a large aquarium and have fish delivered too)
  • The regular magazine / ordering guide. Its full of handy hints and growing tips plus everything you need to know to order from Diggers
  • The customer service lady i spoke with today was good at dealing with my complaint about the companion panting chart: http://www.diggers.com.au/shop/product/HCCH/CHART%20COMPANION%20PLANTING.aspx
  • I ordered a vegetable planting guide which contained a section on ‘Moon planting’. ‘Lunar gardening is a concept i’m extremely interested in!

http://www.diggers.com.au/shop/product/HVGG/Vegetable%20Growing%20Guide.aspx

The other side:

  • I have made a few orders with Diggers and have experienced a couple of issues:
  • member ‘free gifts’ show as ‘out of stock’
  • lots of items are ‘out of stock’
  • Expensive – even member prices are at the top end of what you might expect
  • I purchased a companion planting guide for $14.95. It was packed on the bottom of my order and arrived crushed. In its ‘un-crushed’ state, it was a poorly printed piece of A3 paper with no coating or protection. It was impossible to read and i really cant believe that diggers attempted to charge me nearly 15 dollars for this item.  My request to return the product was handled professionally!
  • My expensive 5 year membership renewal was supposed to include a ‘Gift’. No gift was sent :- ( (customer service assure me that they will sort this out)
  • I ordered a couple of citrus trees (limequat and blood orange). The Fact Sheet link for blood orange leads to a 404 error.    Diggers make their pot sizing clear and i knew what i was ordering. With this in mind, i don’t think i have ever seen a nursery or department store sell such sickly specimens for $29.95. I felt so let down when i opened the (well packed) box to extract small and sad looking plants – when i paid $29.95 plus postage. i know a ‘Limequat’ is not common, but even bunnings stock Blood Orange- and for $30 i could get a pretty happy looking tree!

It is possible that they trimmed the plants down before packing to reduce transpiration – but this wouldn’t explain the yellowing leaves.

Hopefully they will come good after i plant them out and give them a feed.

On balance, Diggers magazine is a great catalogue, but so far they have given me little other reason to recommend you join.

Come on Diggers – pick up your game!

Alternatives:

For seeds, i have had great purchases from ebay seller: ‘Seeds4you’. this seller has a great variety and provides growing notes for each item!

For live plants, try www.gardenexpress.com.au as an alternative.

happy gardening.

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