On Thursdays I drop some CSA boxes off in Newcastle, then spend the morning with my daughter Meg and her son Arlo. Mostly we walk over to her local Community Garden and do some work there. Meg grows as much food as she can in her small suburban garden but has decided to supplement it with food from the community garden.
This garden already had some fruit trees but they were in need of a little attention so we decided to slowly but surely turn the area into a food forest. Each Thursday we do a little bit more, starting first with a cuppa!!
There is quite a lot of organic matter dropped off by a gardening service which is piled up and smelly. We began to move it about to make compost heaps and then started using it as part of sheet mulching.
First we lay down a good many sheets of wet newspaper and cover it with the semi decomposed organic matter. As Bill Mollison used to say "turning bad news into good news." After a few weeks we are able to start to plant into this to build up a guild ( an harmonious interaction of elements) around each of the fruit trees.
And of course Arlo is our biggest helper.
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| Ready to go grandma ! |
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| I can't find the bug anywhere |
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| We had some extra help at the garden today along with our Intern |
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| Here's how we are joining each of the trees up and then we will widen the beds until there is only a small central path between them. |
I love the idea of a community garden, how wonderful to be able to share and exchange knowledge as well as produce.
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