Earth care, people care and nurture to share

Earth care, people care and nurture to share

It’s finally spring after a bitterly cold winter and the neighbourhood is buzzing with the hum of bees, and dragonflies warming themselves on the garden bed signal rocks (looks like they favour red). 

The butterflies simply love the yellow Calendulas on our community garden beds. 

The much anticipated arrival of spring was announced by a stormy night on the last day of August. The first day of spring had some of our volunteers rushing to assess the damage done to our vegetable garden beds by the high force gale winds through the night. 

The stakes were all down and had to be reinforced. The volunteers got busy cleaning the fallen plants and after assessing the wind burn to the delicate pea leaves, we were happy that some resilient climbers were still strong enough to survive. 

At the last gardening bee of August, we were admiring the snow peas and broad beans showing promise of a good harvest to be shared with our Southbank community. 

A lot of learning happens in our gardens, as we keep changing our planting patterns to accommodate the community’s requests and simultaneously navigate planting according to changing weather patterns. 

On both working bees of the past two fortnights, the freezing weather moved us indoors to the Boyd lobby where the members discussed  ideas for next steps to spring planting. The windy wet days were not helpful, but we’re happy to let the community know that our spring flower seeds are finally in the garden beds. 

As you head to City Rd in the next couple of weeks, watch out for the flower seeds to sprout up  and enjoy the salvias, mixed saisies, sunflowers and other multicoloured flowers through the rest of the spring and mid-summertime.

Gardening group members also took the opportunity to share houseplant-themed puzzles, exchanging  ideas and recipes (pickled carrots, preserves etc., recipes shared on our socials) during indoor times and some of the members seized the opportunity to clean and sharpen the gardening tools. 

A few gardening tools were taken for maintenance by our volunteers at the recently held Riverfest Men’s Shed event at Westgate Biodiversity Park. A big thank you to the volunteers from Men’s Shed Port Melbourne for giving new life to some of our gardening shears.

The other outdoor gardening activities have continued on warmer week days with pruning, weeding, checking water content in our water beds, fertilising with worm juice and planting of leafy vegetables. A good yield of lettuce, carrots, beetroot, Asian greens and herbs like parsley will be soon be ready to share. 

We will keep you posted about harvest readiness through our traffic signal rocks.

Zero waste in daily life and beyond

The start of spring leading up to early summer is when most of us spring clean and try to minimise our waste disposal charges.

The concept of “zero waste” has emerged in the past few years and has become an integral part of living with sustainability principles that aim to send nothing or as little as possible to the landfill. We put this question to our sustainability group champions who practice what they preach and provided some easy to follow ideas for high-rise living:

  • Reduce food wastage Pickling of excess vegies like carrots and preserves, food scraps being utilised for vermicompost by having mini composters and/or Bokashi buckets, and cooking your own meals, which is healthy, economical and less wasteful. 
  • Reduce and reuse packaging Buy food in bulk and reuse wrappers for bin lining. 
  • Sustainable transportation Walk more often, use bicycles or take public transport 
  • Gardening practices Plant waste in compost, reduce water usage, have wicking beds, water only during dry weather and with a well maintained gardening hose.

Upcoming event to commemorate the Children’s Week

October 6 to 13 is Victorian Seniors Week and it is imperative that we acknowledge the wonderful team comprising of several seniors who tirelessly take care of our SSG community gardens and embody the true spirit of “nurture to share” and bring the Southbank community together. 

Bee Discovery sustainability workshop:

Saturday, October 26, 10.30am at Boyd Community Hub. 

About the group 

SSG is a solution-focused community group of Southbank residents, working to bring positive change in sustainability practices.

For more information: facebook.com/southbanksustainabilitygroup or email [email protected]

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