| No Dig Garden and Water Conservation Techniquess |
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WHERE: Moss Vale Community Garden
Moss Vale Community Garden opened its gates to the public for a demonstration of a variety of sustainable practices in the backyard. To celebrate National Permaculture Day, there was a no-dig gardening demonstration, where a new garden bed was created on top of the ground using a variety of readily available materials like straw, garden wastes, lawn clippings, kitchen wastes and animal manures. Within 15 minutes, we had a bed ready for planting up seasonal vegetable seedlings like silverbeet, cabbages and constant pick lettuces.
A short talk on chickens and their benefits to a backyard food garden followed, with the help of bantam pekins named Henry and Henrietta Chook. They were a smash hit with the kids and happily munched on bok choy leaves plucked from a nearby bed. We will be running a Care of Chickens workshop at the community garden later in the year. Watch this space!
But the big drawcard of the day was the water-wise gardening demonstration after lunch. A keen crowd of around 30 people watched as Richard Manning, of Aquamann Irrigation, explained the concept of drip and spray irrigation, water tank installation and solar power for pumping water from the tank to the garden beds. The community garden was able to purchase the tank, solar equipment and irrigation supplies via a grant provided by the NSW Environmental Education Trust and with generous donations from local businesses, Solar Pump and Tracker, NRMA Batteries, Mittagong and Moss Vale Resource Recovery Centre. This Open Day was just one of a range of activities planned for the community garden over the coming year, with future topics covering seedsaving, cheesemaking, building a cob pizza oven and how to propagate fruit trees and shrubs at home.
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