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

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