CELEBRATING 15 years  - planted 2009

what's happening in the garden - news & events

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Spring has arrived, air & soil temps are on the way up, rain is sporadic... 
plants are budding and sprouting ready for a growth spurt.  Time to keep on with mulching, fertilizing, and get those Spring seedlings planted.  Teams have been busy nurturing & harvesting winter crops or those going to seed. See our calendar of events coming up throughout the 2024 year down below.  And tap our knowledge bank to inform your next planting plans by seeing our proven  "planting guides"and maintenance tips, Click here to visit our  "How to' section and specifics for October as days lengthen, sun strenthens and temps rise, calling us all outside again.  Keep your soil quality high with continuous composting and mulched to suppress weeds.  If you haven't visited the resources and planting tips on this site take a walk through September & October guides now in our "How to" section..  Regular visits to our fountain of growing knowledge can really get you some delicious results.

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SLEEPERS re-awakened with Woollahra Council
grant to revamp of our garden beds. In Sept this year
27 existing hardwood railway-sleepers from the original
2010 installed raised garden bed walls were replaced

courtesy of a recent Community Grant from council
after some careful planning and intensive work by a

contract work-team in just one week onsite.  Read more
about this massive maintenance-upgrade task here. 

Thanks WMC.

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Community Gardens Info-Sharing Conference
held in June. Members of Paddington's Community
Garden recently joined in this day long information
sharing festival between community gardens across
eastern Sydney hosted at the Randwick Sustainability
Hub.  Warwick & Maree Mann, and Ann represented us
and tickets were sponsored by Woollahra Council. 
Read the full report on our events page by clicking
on the link here.

 

In December 2023 our long serving President and
garden founding member Rob Joyner decided to
step down from responsibilities after 15 years of
selfless, enthusiastic contribution to our community
garden and hand the reigns to Bill Mann.  We asked
how he encapsulated the time, effort and rewards in
the garden and how things have changed.  He replied
without hesitation... " it's been 15 years of friendship,
fun and fab food." Click here to read Rob's thoughts on
two decades of change in community attitudes to
growing your own.

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ASPIRING new Gardeners? ...finally we are now
open  with limited places for new MEMBERS. Now
in our 15th year demand to join our band of over 53
gardeners outstripped the plots available during and
post-COVIDera.  We know many have been waiting to
join and can announce that 'Expressions of Interest'
can nowproceed.  Get started at the green JOIN button
in the left column of this page Green fingers crossed!

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Celebrating CHRISTMAS 2024 at our NOVEMBER monthly get together with  our alphabet inspired dress-up theme echoing the letter "I' in our Fancy-dress garden journey... Sounds like a bit of Apple inspired narcissism coming up as

"i-something", Islanders, Irish, Aye aye Sir,  i-spy with my little... just for starters for our gardening community shindig.  Get thinking and don't miss it on Sunday Nov 24th.  As usual there will be a DIY-christmas  spread of delicious foods and liquids enjoyed.  Please bring a plate filled with goodies to share. 

See you i-people there.

Top TIPS...  a number of our gardeners have shared
their experiences and insights with a series of short
workshop at our monthly meetings.  Here's 2 to enjoy;
Rob shares his hard learned lessons on successfully 
growing tomatoes (there's also a link to a segment
on ABC's Gardening Australia for even more tips from
Tino in Tasmania). . . and Djo gives us a unique

perspective on lunar planting... moon fans click here.

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​My Garden Rules!'... recipes from the gardeners. The organic produce that grows in our community garden goes into delicious healthy meals... our talented gardeners share some of their favourite veggie recipes right here.  

Sample David's 'Healthy Veggie Balls"... if you have lots of Silverbeet, or other spinach, and you'd like to do something different here's a way to make some great comfort food, inspired by the Italians, or maybe the Spanish in David's case.  Based on Strangolapreti alla Trentina here's the link...

Or... enjoy Djo's 'Ratatoueille a la Francias' recipe... eggplants are easy to enjoy warm with meats, salads, BBQed, and so delish!  Visit our recipes page (just below "Gallery" in the top banner) and start enjoying your Aubergine harvest more.

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events coming up

NEXT Garden Meeting will be on Sunday Sept 22nd starting at 2pm
for Team Plant-out followed by monthly meeting in the pergola for an update.

There will be a delicious Harvest Meal after the meeting.... see you there for the beginning of a new growing season.

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QUICK CALENDAR of 2024 EVENTS planned in the GARDEN for your diary

March 24 -  Plant out day for new team crops

May 26 -  Communal Working Bee to spruce up the garden

July 28 -  Another Working Bee to springboard out of deep winter

September 22 -  Team Plant Out Day for Spring crops

November 24 -  Christmas Party time already... "i" theme

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​10 years of GROWTH celebrated... in October 2019 (pre-COVID era) 60 of

our gardeners and friends sat down around a very long table down the centre
of our lush garden to celebrate the first decade of the Paddington Community Garden over a "Big Fat Greek Lunch".  Lots of hard work, inspiring leadership and friendship have gone into making this a successful community space.  As usual the teams of volunteers put together something special to mark this milestone.  Champagne in the pergola to start, classic entrees of Dolmades, Tzatziki & bread, followed by oodles of BBQ Lamb and Rosemary, roast chickens, salads extraordinaire, honeyed sweets and a few glasses of cold liquids, resulting in that very full feeling...  satisfaction that we have celebrated well.

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Garden members celebrate our 10 Years of Growth

over our 'Big Greek Lunch'  full tummies and lots of smiles