Winter

Well we have been busy beavers this winter and dug a 5x16m patch for new potatoes and our new tunnel house.
the shallots are bulbing up and the harvesting of large juicy organic brussel sprouts has begun although the red variety from kings has not reddened up yet even with some pretty heavy frosts. the Romanesco Brocoli has been the highlight compared to the scilian violet cauliflowers which were diseased ridden and did not head well at all. Our small crop of yams was delicious as were the parsnips big reminder to our selves that we really need to rip thoose tomatoes out earlier and get the autumn crops in around christmas. leeks, yams, parsnips. We have has a few disaters which is always heartening for others to hear as the autum bok choi bolted as soon as the shortest day past. the Carrots were planted late and are small yet delicious however out they came to day as carrot rust fly lavae have set in. I'm thinking of sowing must to clear the ground any other suggestions a nice bloke from the BHU said microclimber cloth and compaion plant and or some thing with height. My cloth was to wide and the leeks are over 10m away and broad beans are theonly thing i have that have height and are on the other side of the garden. Bev Church from the New Brighton Residents association said that we should plant in August for christmas carrots and March for winter varieties. I'm doing the lybanna yellow and purple dragons again however there are some people who just want big carrots so kings have a variety for Giant carrot growing competitions which you can find under stock feed......

there is some thing about community gardnes that enables bpeople to feel empowered enough by collective community activity that they can start thinking about Fruit trees in Parks ..... Free-dom Fruit parks could happen in a park near you...................

Sunny days in the garden

As summer rolls around, the warm weather continues in between cooler nights. We are excited to see eggplant is still setting fruit, sign of a long summer.



The sunflowers are coming to a close, full of seeds, which the birds are enjoying. You may also see some of the sunflowers at the Sand dance cafe, opposite the paper plus. They were a gift for Bonnie, Thom, Diane and Jo, who are managing the cafe for a couple of months while the owner Sue takes a break. It is lovely to see some new energy in this friendly community business.








Summer harvest is well underway with butter beans, late corn, celery, tomatoes, beetroots, carrots, tomatiloes, silverbeet, lettuce, kumi kumi and chillis.




Looking further ahead the florence funnel is doing well and the red brussel sprouts will be looking fantastic once it flowers.

In February, we pleased to have the New Brighton Strollers taking a meander around the gardens. They were very impressed with Paula's butter beans and took a bag with them on they're way.

We have also began accepting compost from people's homes, instead of the council collecting it - keep that compost local! The new council bins are very convenient for transposting the compost down to the Gardens, as our volunteer Pat has discovered.

Thats all for now,
See you at the gardens!

New Blog for New Brighton Gardens!

Welcome to the new blog for New Brighton Community Gardens, stay tuned for photos, stories and gossip from our local source of community interaction and vegetables!