WELCOME TO THE WAUCHOPE NEIGHBOURHOOD CENTRE
COMMUNITY GARDEN

The Neighbourhood Centre's Community Garden is located at the rear of the centre at 3 Waugh Street, Wauchope.  The Garden is open Monday, Wednesday and Friday 9.30 - 1.30 with workshops running Friday's from 10.30 - 12.00.  Our dedicated volunteers ensure there is produce all year round.  Excess produce is donated to the Wauchope Free Meals Service and also supports our Emergency Relief Program. 

The Community Garden was set up to provide local advice, education and promote gardening & sustainable living in the community. The garden aims to:

How you can help... volunteers are needed in the following areas:

Administration

• Publicity
• Photocopying, computer work and general admin

Events

• Festivals
• Shows / fairs

Education

• Tutors for Workshops
• Tutors for Kids workshops

Gardening

• Composting
• Food Production
• Maintenance 

What do I do at the garden?

The first thing you should do when you visit the garden is to pick a strawberry, a bean or a pea and eat it.  If you don't feel like work today then that's OK because we are happy for you to enjoy the garden and the company from other volunteers. If you would like to join the many volunteers there is always plenty to do.  Check the blackboard to see what chores and activities we have on at the moment and what needs doing.  Some of the activities you can help with:

Worm Farming and Composting
If you would like to regularly donate your kitchen scraps or grass clipping to the garden we would be most grateful, as this is how we get healthy soil. Food scraps go in the worm farms or the compost heap. If worm farms are dry they would probably like a sprinkle with the watering can. Grass clipping coffee grounds and other bulky organic materials go in the compost bays (no cuttings please). If compost is cold then it probably needs to be turned - better exercise than spending an hour at the gym.

Seed saving
We run the seed exchange at the Uniting Church Saturday markets and are always happy to receive seeds and have people avail themselves of our seeds.  Visit us at the market on 1st Saturday of the month.

Pulling weeds
If in doubt - don't pull it out.

Harvesting
Everyone's favourite. We donate most of our produce to the Wauchope Free Meals Service and to our Emergency Relief Program.  So please check before you harvest.  Most vegetable plants benefit from harvesting - so pick, pick, pick. The only time you will take the whole plant when harvesting is when you pick root crops such as carrots, potato, Swedes, beetroot and the like.  For leafy vegetables including lettuce, spinach, celery, parsley and the like, pick the outside leaves by breaking them off in a sidewards motion so that the leaves snap off at the base. This will ensure that the plants keep producing.

Existing Features

Balcony Garden - demonstrating that you don't need much room to be able to
grow a few fresh vegies, even renters and apartment dwellers can do it!

Square Foot Gardens, showing off a new system to grow a lot in a small
space, and stay on top of your gardening tasks!

Rotating Vegies Beds - using a tried and tested way of growing different
vegetables over a long term

Hen Hilton - chooks and ducks are our fertiliser-factories and waste
disposers

Pete's Patch- an area this season being converted to a sustainable
vegetable system using CSIRO's 'Clever Clover' project

Composting area demonstrating composting bays, tumblers etc

Heritable Vegetable Seed Saving bed, used to grow out a particular locally
saved heirloom vegetable for seed production
 

Coming Attractions:

Exclusion House -  pest free environment

 Around the Garden

Although the weather is cooler and there is seemingly less to grow in the vege patch, why not try some unusual varieties of what will grow. Aside from the usual hearting lettuces there are red, green and yellow ones as well as rabbits ears etc.

The same applies to peas- there are shelling peas, snow peas, sugar snap peas, pretty ones with coloured flowers that produce edible pods (unlike sweet peas) they come in bush forms as well as climbing varieties.

Broad beans traditionally have black and white flowers that are very pretty and can be incorporated into a flower bed with other white flowers and perhaps and some black flowering pansies. Broad beans are also available with crimson coloured flowers.

Pestwatch

     1) Keep an eye on citrus trees for signs of scale, if present spray with white oil. Do not spray if a frost is likely to occur.

      2) Fruit fly needs to be kept in check with fruit ripening on citrus now. Make sure traps and lures are in place and collect any fallen fruit immediately.

      3) Remove any mummified fruit from other fruit trees and pick up fallen fruit from the ground and dispose fo appropriately.

      4) Remove codling moth bands from apple trees and destroy. Give the bark a cleanup with a wire brush to remove pupating caterpillars.

      5) Spray leafless fruit trees with a Bordeaux mixture for protection against leaf curl, brown rot, shot hole scab etc.

      6) If onion maggots have been a problem in the past, sprinkle between onions lightly with wood ash. 

First chance to plant:  Asparagus crowns, rhubarb,

Continue planting: broad beans,lettuce,mustard,onion,peas dwarf,climbing peas,radish,salsify,silverbeet,spinach,turnip,cabbage,cauliflower, broccoli,brussel sprouts.