What a productive time we had at Bunnings! Willing, friendly helpers every two hours…. Onion chopping in the car…. No complaints about price rise…. Several donations…. Conversations that led to learning…. And a fantastic $1,200 profit…. MANY THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO GAVE THEIR TIME FOR THE COMMUNITY GARDEN! The post The Bunnings crew! appeared first on Gympie Community Garden ..read more

It was the first real sunny, and cloudless, day for weeks! And quite a few keen (and strong!) people turned up for our wicked bed workshop yesterday. Many were interested in the small wicked beds, but everyone mucked in and helped create the large wicked bed. The bed itself had been in storage from when we had the gardens at Cooinda. First we covered the bed in black plastic… Then we covered pots with shade cloth to reduce the amount of sand we needed in the bed. Pots went in, the pipes were in position, and sand was wheelbarrowed in… and wheelbarrowed in… and wheelbarrowed in… The sand was ..read more

You can read current and past editions of Gympie Living online here. The post Read all about wicked beds in the latest issue of Gympie Living appeared first on Gympie Community Garden ..read more

This morning our lovely team got together to raise money for the gardens by recycling bottles. Then we cleaned up the garden and got working on other odd jobs. One of the jobs was to clear rocks so we can easily mow, and create a swale to slow the water coming into our shed. Check out the girl power! We would really like to thank all the people who come together to help make the gardens work for the community as a whole. And they do it with a smile, which is the best part of it! The post Busy bees at working bees appeared first on Gympie Community Garden ..read more

Wicked (pronounced “wikt”) garden beds are an increasingly popular way of growing vegetables and herbs. They are self-contained raised beds with built-in water reservoirs that supply water to plants from the bottom up. This changes how, and how much, you need to water. Because they are self-watering (apart from a tiny input from you), they help prevent evaporation from the surface. A wicked bed should fully irrigate itself for at least a week. At this workshop, we will discuss how wicked beds work and how useful they are. We will be building a big wicked bed on the day so you will know how to ..read more

The gardens are located on a block that is in a one in a hundred year flood zone. And Gympie had its worst rain bomb event for almost 130 years. We have always been a little concerned about what flooding might look like on our block. Well, thanks to Gerard who went down and had a sticky beak, we have these photos. Pooling of water at the car park Looking at our syntropic garden towards Cogan Street The spread of the gully just reached to the sheds, but not to the compost bay or main area with raised beds Some critters were pretty pleased with the rain and made themselves at home next to our sh ..read more

We have our first rainwater tank in place, thanks to the wonderful people who offer their time, skills and knowledge for the benefit of our community. The tank situation was a sad look for quite a while… We called it the ‘paddling pool’… and attempts to drain the water were set back by the rain, and more rain, and more – the rain we all need, but need to save! This week our dedicated volunteer team settled the tank in and hooked it up. And, under cover of daylight, they secured the down pipe into the tank. We are so very pleased that we are not totally dependent on the town water we installe ..read more

We have been planning a syntropic garden for a while, thanks to Lani and all her help with our revised garden design. So what is a syntropic garden? Syntropic farming is many layered and was first put to the test in barren land in Brazil. It starts with trees. It imitates market gardening as well as chop and drop principles to provide good yields, generate fertility, and finally to end up with a productive food forest that has the structure and function of native forests. So, down the track, around these tree we will have beds with all kinds of plants that will feed each other in a gorgeous l ..read more

Every two weeks or so a bunch of Gympie Community Garden members come to the garden for a short time to clean and de-cap bottles for recycling. This is an extremely valuable fundraiser for our community garden; it helps pay for our garden to come to fruition. The beautiful people who come are incredibly generous with their time and smiles, and genuinely care about helping our community garden grow. We always have fun hurling bottles into bags and playing hit and miss! As with many not-for-profits we rely on people who care and want to give back to the community in different ways. So why do ou ..read more

A couple of years ago, Mel held a series of open workshops where anyone in the community could add to our garden wishlist. We wanted a whole heap of things. Since then we have done quite a bit to the garden. We have added water, a shelter, sheds, and so on. So we decided to revisit our plans. And Mel is still on board, with Lani helping out. The revised plans will be detailed, particularly in the central area. There will be a nursery, potting area, more raised beds, a village green, sensory and pollinator gardens, a kids play area, a zen garden, banana circles, orchards, a keyhole garden, wo ..read more