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:

·  encourage growing your own food at home and improving family nutrition
·  provide advice for individuals interested in environmentally friendly gardening
·  help people create food gardens wherever they are living e.g. small spaces, units, rentals
·  encourage group support, social opportunities & friendship
·  provide workshops on growing food, cooking, healthy eating and healthy lifestyles
 
 
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What's on ....
School / Children's Workshops
Children's garden workshops are run during school holidays with local WOOSH and OOSH centres.  We also have established Kitchen gardens with Byabarra, Huntingdon and Herons Creek Public Schools.
 
Seed Exchange
Operates the 1st Saturday of every month at the Uniting Church Markets.  A wide range of seeds are available for swap and it is a great way to ensure a continuing supply of good quality food source.  For more information about the seed exchange please contact the Centre on either Monday, Wednesday or Friday.
 
GARDEN WORKSHOPS
Workshops are held every Friday during school terms and aim to provide information on a wide range of gardening topics.  
 
Participants in a No Dig Garden Workshop held recently.  Participants at a No Dig Garden workshop held recently
 
Friday 12th August - Seed Raising Day
With spring fever hitting, now is the time to learn how to successully raise plants from seed, allowing you to grow a huge number of vegetable varieties not found in nurseries etc, as well as growing the more traditional ones. This will be a hands-on workshop and everyone will be able to take home some punnets of vegetables to get you underway.
 
Friday 26th August - BBQ & Chat Day
As always, the last Friday of the month means a free bite to eat while chatting about the garden successes or problems, with other keen gardeners and our resident horticulturist. This month we may even be visited by someone from a large organic fertiliser company (we hope!)
 
Friday 2nd August - Introduction to Permaculture
No, not some weird cult or mysterious sorts of fertilising routines, permaculture is a great way of looking closer at what you want to grow, discovering where it fits in best and realising that clever planting can make life easier and vegetable gardens more porductive!
 
Friday 9th Sept - Imporving your soil!
Most of us grow everything in soil, so it is really important to know what makes a good soil and why. We will look at options to improve what you've got and what to do now and in the long term.
 
Friday 16th Sept - Camden Haven Community Garden visit
We will travel down to visit Camden Haven Community Garden - a very new and different setup to Wauchope. Light lunch served and plenty of questions asked and answered. Carpooling from Wauchope Community Garden at 10.30am back by 1.30ish
 
Friday 23rd Sept - Problem Solving Day!
Bring in or tell us about your garden problems and we'll try to find solutions, using combined experience and learning. Hopefully we will try out some common methods of pest control to see if they really work and why.
 
Friday 30th September - BBQ and chat day
As always, the last Friday of the month means a free bite to eat while chatting about garden successes or problems, with other keen gardeners and our resident horticulturist. A good day to come along and check out the Garden if you haven't been before.
 
Where:  Neighbourhood Centre 3 Waugh Street
Time:  10.30 - 12.00
 
 GETTING INVOLVED .....
To join our friendly group of volunteers at Wauchope you can call into see us on the last Friday of the month and meet the other volunteers, you can also email us winc@midcoast.com.au so you can keep up to date with the latest news and activities or call us on 6586 4055 to find out more information.

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

Administration

Events

Education

Gardening

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 plantAsparagus crowns, rhubarb,

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