 The next event on the Mandurah Community Gardens calendar is a workshop Growing Veggies 101 presented by John Draper from local business Harvest Me. Enjoy your own fresh, organic homegrown veggies grown yourself. This presentation will give you all the facts, tips and tricks to successfully start growing your very own veggies! The workshop is on Saturday 5th March 2022 from 10pm to 12 noon. Booking is essential as places are limited. Please contact Cheryl on 0414 348 404 or email info@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au. If you will be coming to this workshop, please arrive 15 minutes early to start at 10am sharp. Everyone is welcome to stick around after the workshop to have a chat and a cuppa, check out the garden and our plants and worm products for sale. Following the workshop there will also be a Working Bee in the community garden from 12 to 2pm and everyone is welcome to join in. Hope to see you there! Click on the link below to download the flyer for the event. 
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 Free workshop with John Draper from local business Harvest Me at Mandurah Community Gardens Saturday 5th February 2022 — 10am to 12pm A PRESENTATION ON HOW TO SAVE SEEDS FOR GROWING YOUR OWN HEALTHY FOOD Topics covered: Methods of pollination, heirloom + open pollination, when to collect seed and how to correctly store saved seeds. Booking is required to attend. Please contact Cheryl events@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au or phone 0414 348 404 to secure your place. Click on the link below to download the flyer
 Four Meditation Workshops 3 Wish Water Meditation: Sunday 6th February 2022 ⋅ 9:30am to 11am Gentle Breath Work Sound Meditation: Sunday 11th February 2022 ⋅ 12:30pm to 2pm Transform Mindset - Create Your Own Affirmation Card: Sunday 20th February 2022 ⋅ 9:30am to 11am Chant & Be Happy - Join in Song & Gentle Movement Together: Friday 25th February ⋅ 12:30 – 2pm Please arrive 15 minutes early to prepare for sitting.
You can book all four sessions in advance. A $10.00 booking fee is required, refundable after attendance of sessions booked. Strictly limited places available. Contact the Garden Coordinator Cheryl to make your booking: events@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au Mobile: 0414 348 404 Click on the link below to download the flyer
 Friday 1st October 2021 10am to 11:30am Part 1: Bindi Bindi Dreaming - Learn About Aboriginal Culture Marissa will talk about the traditions and beliefs of the Noongar people. Part 2: Tucker Bush Educational Incursion Mark talks about Tucker Bush followed by a demonstration planting of edible plants in a new Tucker Bush plot at the gardens. Please arrive at 9:45am for 10am start of workshop. THIS IS A FREE WORKSHOP PLACES ARE STRICTLY LIMITED - BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL! Stay for a Yummy Sausage Sizzle Lunch on sale to help with garden running costs - cash only please. Followed by a busy bee. RSVP to reserve your place in the workshop and please indicate if you would like to help with the garden busy bee afterwards. To Book: Contact Cheryl: events@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au Mobile: 0414 348 404
 Coming up in July... On Saturday 24th July, John Draper from local business Harvest Me will be holding a FREE workshop presentation on creating biodiversity in a garden through attracting helpful insects. Topics covered include:
A handout including a list of flowers to attract insects will be provided. The workshop will be held at Mandurah Community Gardens, starting at 10am and going through to 12pm. With John's workshops always being popular, places are sure to go quickly. Booking early is recommended. Email Cheryl at info@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au to book a place at the workshop.  PLUS You are invited to stay for a hot pumpkin soup and damper lunch followed by a community busy bee to plant veggie seeds and do mosaics for our pizza oven and more. Cost for lunch is $5.00 RSVP for workshop, lunch and busy bee to info@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au. Download the workshop flyer
This workshop is proudly supported by the City of Mandurah.    Starting from Saturday 5th June, Mandurah Community Gardens will be hosting the Mosaics Month workshop. Presented by Christine Read and supported with funding from the City of Mandurah, the workshop will run for 4 weeks every Saturday from 1pm to 4pm. It's going to be fantastic fun and a great opportunity to be creative, and in the company of good people! Remember, places are very limited - so make sure you contact Cheryl by email to info@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.ay to secure your place.   Our Garden To Plate workshops are back again in 2020!  Planning Your Garden - Saturday 7th March 2020 presented by experienced local gardener Chris Lampard The first workshop for the year held at Frasier's Landing in Coodanup. Come and learn how to make best use of the space you have to design a beautiful, practical garden that combines food production, attracts birds and bees, and looks great all year round! Free to attend. Gold coin donation for tea and coffee. Bring a plate for morning tea. More coming up!
Future workshops will be held on the 1st Saturday of each month. They will cover a range of gardening topics including growing vegetables from seed and seedlings, how to improve your soil, the secrets of great compost, and tips for native gardening. For more information please contact Mandurah Community Gardens info@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au or visit our Facebook page for event announcements.   Garden 2 Plate Facilitators: Nicole Ingham (Foodbank WA Nutritionist) & Chris Lampard (Mandurah Native Gardens). Guest Speaker: Ellen (Byford Community Gardens) Written by: Pauline Soucie Garden to Plate is an innovative project running since 2014, that focuses on improving health and encourages people to become more involved in their local community - for more information follow this link: https://www.foodbankwa.org.au/2014/06/20/garden-to-plate/ Foodbank WA (fighting hunger in Western Australia since 1994) have partnered up with the Mandurah Community Gardens and the City of Mandurah to offer these fantastic free community courses, where participants learn about the value of including fresh fruits and vegetables in their diet and are armed with information & resources aimed to help them growing edible gardens at home. Once you get a taste for growing food organically, it becomes such a satisfying and rewarding experience, to harvest your own food and enjoy the nutritional and taste benefits. You will never want to buy “fresh” fruit & veg from supermarket chains like Coles or Woolworths again…and hey just think how many plastic bags you will save in the process! Today’s topic was all about SOIL… the importance of building healthy soil for happy plants. Oh and did I mention Nicole made yummy homemade soup plus fruit and other tasty treats from the garden?? All free and delicious I might add! (on a side note; Nicole also runs an AWESOME community cooking course called Food Sensations through Foodbank WA which is also free! To find out more &/or book on an upcoming series, email nicole.ingram@foodbankwa.org.au). As an informal “icebreaker” we mingled to introduce ourselves, describe our favourite vegetable, plus name a vegetable that we’ve never tried before (seems artichokes won the ‘never tried’ award, but not everyone agreed they’d like to try eating one haha). Then it was game time: Name that Vegetable (to be followed up with “Eat that Vegetable” – a take home challenge to try every vegetable listed before next month’s workshop). Given most of us are pretty keen gardeners I think everyone breezed through the naming game – however it would be interesting to see how well kids and/or say, staunch pie eaters would go identifying approx. 25 different types of vegetables by (unpacked) pictures alone. Which leads me to question: how in touch “we” are with our food these days? The more immersed I become in gardening & learning about organic growing methods, the more I realise how out of whack & disconnected from food our society in large has become. In my own experience, just a few years ago, I actually would not have been able to tell you how a lot of fruits & vegetables grow (for instance pineapples! Oh and how about peanuts?! P.S. if you don’t know, google it yo) - let alone giving much thought as to where the produce I was buying came from (i.e. if something is not the season for growing but it's available to buy, chances are it’s not local and therefore not as good - but hey that is another blog topic in itself me thinks). Especially true in remoter areas (such as Karratha, WA) where as a local for several years I had just figured the only smart option was to buy snap frozen vegetables wrapped in plastic bags…something that nowdays you would rarely - if ever - catch me eating that frozen mushy crap! Yup, now I eat straight from the plant if I’m hungry in the garden and WOW is it good! Many people question why bother growing their own food - and hey I get it - in this fast paced consumer driven "convenience" bandwagon the world has become stuck on, we have almost lost the ability to survive should society as we know it collapse. Seriously though, it’s not that hard to break free from that kind of consumerism mentality! I suggest to start small, with stuff you like to eat, choose easy to grow crops based on your location, lifestyle (and cooking styles) – whatever works, go with that, start there & see what happens! It’s good for the soul to run a little wild with nature every now and then, feel the sun on your face (okay pretty hit or miss this time of year I will admit), embrace the beautiful bees & bugs, get your hands dirty, feel the soil and get that earth connection. I promise the more you seek, the more you will be amazed! Meanwhile back to why good soil is important… Healthy soil = better tasting, healthier plants with more nutrients (and no nasty chemicals and pesticides!) By putting more effort into the prepping the soil’s biology, you will also find less need to “feed the plants” because you have a network of microbial organisms teaming up to work for you and your beautiful plants. Using these techniques combined with crop rotation & effective composting methods you will not only get bumper crops, but will extend the life-cycle of your garden bed (this means less work in the long run!). Ellen (from Byford Community Gardens) spoke about Soil Biology, organic gardening principles, biological planting to feed microbes/micro-organisms & explained how all these elements make up the ‘Soil Food Web’. Fun Fact: Grasses harbor Bacteria; Trees love Fungi – but Vegetables need a blend of both, held together in harmonious balance by Nematodes (these act as a delivery system for nutrients). Next Chris dished the dirt on Composting & worm farming (check out his great visual below to explain to the process if you're more of a picture person) DIY is always best when it comes to composting because it's literally ALIVE with organic matter. Not only is composting and worm farming super fantastic for the soil biology but it's so affordable, practical & will cut down your household waste! Think WIN WIN! Compost piles LOVE a feed of worm wee/poo "teas" (not to be confused with a cuppa tea hahaha) – and again, the DIY approach will produce maximum results and is affordable and easy (however brewing compost & worm teas may also need a blog of its own). Using whatever ‘ingredients’ you have available and a few simple new household habits, it won't take long to get your compost festering along nicely... So, the two main types of composting discussed today were Sheet Mulching and "Insitu" Composing: Sheet Mulching (based on permaculture principals) So this is a super easy and affordable way to start, however consensus seems to be split on the effectiveness, especially if you're talking about areas typically infested with grass or weeds. The process basically entails mowing the lawn area or removing the weeds then smothering with thick layers of cardboard - just be careful not to leave any gaps else may find weeds/grasses escaping through to your garden bed later down the track. If you really wanted to be sure your weeds die and don’t come back, you could go hard and dig out the grasses or if you have the time/money to spray, try a glycosate based product (however I highly recommend keeping the chemicals away from anything edible and if spraying chemicals allow several weeks before preparing the affected area). "Insitu" Composting (chop and drop method) This is by far Chris' preferred method (and hey if you have the time and space it really doesn't get any easier than this!) It's all about layers and using available organic materials to prep an area you would like to set up as a vegetable garden in the future. Start with a layer of green manure for Nitrogen (oats, peas, vetch & mustard are some of the most nutrient dense but you can use lawn clipping or any other clean green waste), then a layer of brown matter for Carbon (sawdust, woodchips, straw etc). Next is a lovely layer of poo (worm poo wins hands down but sheep & chook poo are also effective), another layer of green materials, another brown layer then heavily cover with mulch and give a big 'ol drink before covering up that badboy with a carpet to keep all those stinky juices warm and contained. Leave to stew for 1 month then smoosh it all around with a pitch fork and leave 1 more month...and then voila...you have made compost! Spread the resulting black gold around and hey presto it's time to sow some seeds. Most Mandurah local gardeners know from experience, that our soils are typically sandy, with little to no nutrients or water retaining capabilities. So Chris finished up by answering the question on everyone's lips...how do I turn my sandy, water-proof dust bowl into a lush organic haven for microbes and such?? SANDY SOIL REMEDY FORMULA Bentonite Clay (2-3kg) Compost (20L) Manures (10L) Minerals like Rockdust (few scoops) Wetting Agent (handful) Worm Castings (1/2 bucket) I'd just like to add in closing, that it has been a massive blessing meeting & joining the passionate team at Mandurah Community Gardens and plugging into a wonderful wealth of knowledge (& plant) sharing. With so many exciting workshops and events happening this year, I won’t blame you for being interested or wanting to get involved! If you want o know more &/or become a member email: info@mandurahcommunitygardens.com.au  |
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