Arrival of Chickens!

One piece of exciting news this week is the arrival of 6 Chinese Silkie hens and their fantastic hen house and run. You will find them up behind the Church near the Peoples' Units.  These were very well-loved and generously donated to our Garden by a parish family, and they are settling in well – one has even laid an egg already!  We do need to organise a system for their care - a meeting will be held outside the Parish Hall this Saturday morning at 9am for those interested in being added to this Roster. 

The first egg!

Bob's Bistro - What A Night!

Saturday 18 June - Parish Hall

Thank-you to everyone that attended the launch of Bob’s Bistro last Saturday night. 

The Parish Hall was transformed into an Italian Eatery for the evening – Father Bob, Father Silvio and 130 parishioners, school parents and children enjoyed the fine fare on offer – bread and olives, pasta and salad, fruit, cakes, gelato and chestnuts which had been roasted over the open-fire.  A great value night out for $15 pp! We are vey grateful to the families and businesses that donated ingredients or time to make the event possible.

Proceeds of the night will go towards the development of the garden, but the main vision for the Bistro is for our community to have the opportunity to come together to enjoy the “fruits” of the garden.  With the garden in its early stages, we weren’t able to serve produce from our garden this time, but the plan is for the Menu of each seasonal event to be developed from what will be harvested at that time of year.

Looking forward to the warmth of Spring, we are about to start planning our spring crops.  Feel free to email us bree@seedharvestspoon.com.au with any Menu ideas (I’m thinking Spring lambs….) for “Prima Vera” at Bob’s Bistro, so that we can plant ingredients.

The Kids' Table and Father Bob of the Bistro

The Pasta Cooks

Plating Up in the Kitchen

Salad Servers?

Good Food, Good Wine & Good Friends

A Few Words

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire

Keeping Warm!

Toasting Marshmallows

Great Gelato - Strawberry, Chocolate, Vanilla, Panna Cotta AND Coffee flavours!

Beautiful Fresh Produce from Sydney Markets but next time from our Garden we hope!

We invite you to post your photos or thoughts of the night.

Visiting St Mary's School Georges Hall

Herb Spiral built by students

The torrential rain held off just long enough last Monday, for us to enjoy a walk and a talk around the beautiful edible garden in one of our fellow Catholic Schools - St Mary's School Georges Hall. 

All Hallows parents and teachers gather with Antonina in the garden

 

Michelle, Heather and I last year visited this school and met with Antonina, the teacher who established their garden. We gained lots of inspiration for what could be created in our Parish School. It was wonderful this time, to have two teachers and a teacher's aide from All Hallows come and see what might be possible in our school garden.



Raised garden beds - mix of tank-style and low to the ground timber frame beds 



Commercial-sized worm farm now replaces the smaller worm farms



School Garden Noticeboard mounted on wall near school entrance 



International Composting Awareness Week 1-7 May 2011

International Composting Awareness Week is a week of activities, events and publicity to improve awareness about the importance of this valuable organic resource and to promote compost use, knowledge and products.

We are very proud of All Hallows Parish School's waste management which incorporates composting and worm farming. Our composting and worm farming area within the school is very impressive - Food scraps of children, staff, canteen and OOSH are used and managed by the students on a daily basis to produce compost and reduce the waste that would otherwise contribute to landfill.  Once decomposed we use the compost in our Parish vegie gardens.

Over time, we hope to educate and  inspire all school families and parishioners to implement composting systems in their home environment.

Happy National Permaculture Day! Sunday 1 May

Tthe following podcast is an interview with Geoff Lawton (a renowned permaculture consultant, designer and teacher) that aired on ABC Radio's Bush Telegraph last Friday 29 April.
http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/2011/04/bth_20110429_1133.mp3
For those of us who have trouble explaining what Permaculture is to our family, friends and colleagues, this is a great link to send on to people to introduce the idea to those who are interested in finding out more.


The interview was conducted in the lead up to National Permaculture Day which was held yesterday, Sunday 1 May, 2011. This is a day where a range of Permaculture events occur across Australia.


All Hallows Parish Communtiy Garden held our own National Permaculture Day event - A Worm Farming Workshop presented by Paul Boundy (The Watershed Newtown and Community Garden Workshops).

The Workshop was a huge success with those who attended gaining new knowledge, as well as installing a Bath Tub Worm Farm in the Parish Garden and a Worm Tower in one of the School Garden beds.  Each of these Worm Farms have started with a herd of 1000 worms which will go forth and multiply, whilst producing castings and worm juice that will contiue to nourish our garden beds over the years.  These worms are a different species to the ordinary earth worm that we find in the soil of our home gardens, but the two species can and do live in harmony with each other. 

1000 Worms being introduced to their new home in the
Parish Garden Bath Tub Worm Farm

The School Garden Worm Tower

Working Bee this Saturday 9th April 2011, 3pm

Come along! We will be installing two new garden beds at the school.  If you can help for a short while from 3pm to fill the garden beds with soil, it would be greatly appreciated. Contact Michelle on 0438 219 165.

Visiting our neighbouring Community Gardens - Sunday 6 March 2011

Little do most of us know, that in the midst of many Inner Western suburbs that we all frequently drive through or visit are these wonderful garden oases.

This morning our garden committee visited two of these gardens - Glovers Community Garden in Rozelle; and the Leichhardt Permaculture Garden in behind Leichhardt's Fire Station.

Glovers Community Garden recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. The following link will take you to a Village Voice article reporting on the celebration. http://balmain-village-voice.whereilive.com.au/news/story/rozelle-garden-celebrates-25-years/ This garden is regarded as NSW's first community garden and really provides us with inspiration and a vision for what we might be able to create over the next 25 years for our community.

Thank-you Jane Mowbray and the Glovers Garden members who showed us around your beautiful garden.

Beautful mosaic sign

 

Jane Mowbray sharing her wealth of knowledge



 

Kids entering the chicken coop

The spunky rooster and his chickens

Examining the fruit trees inside the chicken coop - beautifully sweet grapefruit!

Must get that Seed Savers book

Leichhardt Permaculture Garden is a very new community garden.  Thank-you to Heather Formaini and the Garden members for sharing their knowledge and experiences with us.  We enjoyed morning tea in the garden - loved the Sacred Grounds Coffee. The raised garden beds in this garden are what inspired our design for the raised beds that we have just constructed and planted in the Parish Garden.

We value and intend to maintain our relationships with our neighbouring gardens - we have so much to share: knowledge, experience, seeds, plants and food!