Our garden volunteers are excited to have been accepted into Landcare’s new “Greening Gympie” program, which came about thanks to generous local donors who would like to see spaces greened with trees and plants appropriate to our region. Members and volunteers from the community garden were able to select 50 trees, which will help protect […] The post Greening Gympie one tree and one step at a time appeared first on Gympie Community Garden ..read more

Agent W did a heap of work for us. Helping create pathways towards, and on, our plan. The work was neat, accurate and their service was excellent. They also did a fantastic job making a pad for our soon-to-be propagation shed. Home schoolers and preschoolers will be able to use this for exploring all kinds […] The post Digging it appeared first on Gympie Community Garden ..read more

We would like to thank Ross Creek Tropicals for their very generous donation of fruit trees to our garden. These trees will not only add to the abundance of the garden; they will also enable us to share more produce with our local community. Now all we need to do is get ready for planting! The post Generous members of our community appeared first on Gympie Community Garden ..read more

Once upon a time there was a part-accidental pumpkin patch at the community gardens. It sprawled and crawled, and sprawled and crawled some more, covering the grass. The pumpkin flowers opened, and excited volunteer gardeners watched the female flowers blossom into small fruit surrounded by wilting petals. The fruit grew and grew, hidden under the hairy leaves.They grew some more, almost every day. But you had to look, with your seeing eyes, to find them sometimes. One day a gardener with a big grey hat spotted a big pumpkin, a middle-sized pumpkin and a baby pumpkin. It was so exciting. Three ..read more

We are holding a herb spiral workshop at the gardens. Herb spirals are designed to take advantage of a vertical garden structure, as well as variations in water and sunlight. As the centre of the spiral is the tallest part it creates more shade on one side and a sunnier aspect on the other. The way the water is designed to drain through the spiral means that drought-tolerant plants benefit and water-loving plants have their fair share. This means you can successfully grow different herbs in the same vertical garden. For example, rosemary likes more sun and dry conditions, whereas soft-leaved h ..read more

The Naming Day event was a great success and thank you to everyone who volunteered and all the community members who came to the gardens for a sticky beak. Here is a quick alphabetical run down of the day… A is for… artist. There were a lot of children being very creative at the colouring-in table B is for… banana leaf seedling pots workshop C is for… Coffee. Can’t live without it. Thanks to All In The Cup D is for… drumming. La Samba Rosa drumming group F is for… food. Free food And fruit… And face painting (or arm painting) G is for… gathering And games And Graham, our president J ..read more

Gympie…Community…Garden – yes this is what it is. And this is our function, mission, project and meaning. But we need a special name for our garden, because it is our special space. So we are racking our brains and thinking – what meaningful name can we give our garden? A name that resonates in the mind of our community? There is a great prize on offer for the best suggested name, and we already have some rolling in… As a special treat we are holding a naming day event. With singing and drumming performances, workshops, face painting, tours, and kid’s games. And coffee. And prizes. Just to ins ..read more

Today we made the mud bricks and constructed the pizza oven. First the clay mix was watered, and mixed to a plasticine consistency, in barrows. Images by Sharon Co Images The base had been prepared yesterday, by some dedicated volunteers… Then came the fun part, mixing the clay with straw – do you wear boots or go barefoot? Then the ‘bricks’ were hand formed. The brick is structure laid out… Then slap those bricks on hard, to eliminate air pockets and to hold the bricks together… Form a wet sand shape for the overall structure. (This comes out later). Cover with more mud bricks until t ..read more

When Gympie Community Garden was located at Cooinda Aged Care, members held a workshop to build a pizza oven.  It pumped out huge numbers of pizzas that someone called ‘the best pizzas ever’. There was a lot of pizza sharing going on. The community garden had to leave Cooinda and find another home. The oven was successfully relocated but sadly decayed in the weather while waiting for a home. But now it is time for a rebuild! The community garden is holding a mud brick workshop to demonstrate how to build a pizza oven. SkillCentred has built the base, so it is all ready to go. At the wo ..read more

For a long, long time the community garden had no toilet. This meant people had to leave working bees or workshops or just duck out for a while to drive to the nearest toilet. We successfully applied for funding through the Gambling Fund and went through a lot – well mountains – of paperwork and red tape. Finally, thanks to SkillCentred and their trainees, the structure went up… But then we found we were missing pieces, some of the bits were in the wrong places… but we soldiered on… The roof went on. The awning went on. But the fittings weren’t right. But we soldiered on… Almost done!   ..read more