Winter-ready at SSG

At most community gardens, winter is a time to reflect on the summer and autumn harvests and plan for spring. This involves assessing and preparing the garden beds for the next season.

Planting Southbank community’s favourite spring flowers isn’t just about expertise and knowledge gained over the years; it’s also constant planning and work from our regular volunteers.

Gardening is a year-round state of mind, even when the garden is quiet. Volunteers work through the year, ensuring the garden is ready for spring.

Melbourne winters are chilly and grey, but the anticipation of spring flowers budding and spreading colour in the flower beds makes the wait worthwhile. Even on freezing mornings, the Southbank Sustainability Group (SSG) community keeps attending the fortnightly working bees, watering roster, cleaning up autumn leaves and regularly tending our worm farms.

May was all about getting the garden ready for winter. Our first working bee was on a cold, rainy day, but the team arrived fully prepared in their puffer jackets and beanies. SSG volunteers did a quick cleanup to get the beds all ready for the community’s favourite winter vegetables; snow peas, broad beans, Asian greens, kale and sweet potatoes. Volunteers prepared the seedlings ready to be planted in the beds.

Our herb collection is a community favourite, and we have a varied collection planted in the garden. In winter these aromatic herbs can be added to your roasts, winter soups, stir-fries and pastas.

We request our community to check the readiness of the herbs before picking. The SSG notice board has updated information on signs our working bees use to indicate which herbs are ready to be picked.

We request community members to take a few sprigs of the herbs only when they’re ready – shown with GREEN ROCKs on bed. Alternatively, come along to our working bee days and we’ll be happy to harvest them with you.

Our second working bee was a morning well-spent with wonderful visitor community members. Some even travelled from far suburbs and Geelong for the weekend to share their passion for community gardening. We tackled various tasks including weeding, mulching and sweeping the garden. A few seedlings needed replanting to ensure they get the best sun during winter. As always, the worm juice and compost used were nourishing for the entire garden. The vermicompost facility at our garden is meticulously managed by volunteers Cheryl and Faye and their hard work is evident in the bountiful produce.

On May 23, our second working bee coincided with Volunteer Week and International Biodiversity Day on May 22. To mark these events, our group leader, Faye organised an inspiring special excursion to Heather and Lindsay’s terrace garden in Southbank.

The April edition of Southbank News had featured this garden and their efforts to encourage and conserve local biodiversity. Nestled amid high-rise buildings, this garden is a mini nature sanctuary attracting birds and pollinators while making significant contribution to the SSG garden as volunteers in its early days.

Our winder gardening bee was held during the first week of June.

June 5 is World Environment Day and this year’s theme #NowForClimate is “Global Call for Climate Action”. We can take small steps for earth and nature care, even small eco-friendly change in daily life can make a big impact.

Join us for our next June catch-up at 10am on Saturday, June 20 at the Boyd Community Hub.

About the group

SSG is a community group of Southbank residents dedicated to bringing positive change in sustainability practices in our daily lives.

Email us at [email protected], visit our Facebook page, or follow us on Instagram.

If you’re interested in learning more, join us for our next catch-up on Saturday, June 20 at 10am at the Boyd Community Hub, 207 City Rd, Southbank. •