winter food gardening

Hello, it has been a wintery type of day here, cool and cloudy and damp feeling.  

Good gardening weather.   I took my camera with me to the community garden today 

(Crib Point Community Garden)  and did a bit of snapping, there is so much green in winter, and a surprising number of edibles available at the minute, a lot of brassicas and other wintery type things, parsnips, carrots, swedes etc.

Of course, I have to show you what I saw!

 Let's go for a bit of a wander.... (lot's of pictures to follow! sorry!)

 ....spring onions.....

......new carrot tops.....

 ......vivid lettuce....

.....sugar loaf cabbages.....

....garlic shoots......

.........delicate fennel fronds.......

 .......broadbeans just pushing through.....

.......gorgeous colour........

 .......baby fennels.....

 .......broccoli heads

 ....green and more green.....

 ......savoy cabbages....

 .....hot house experiments, spinach in boxes.....

 ....and out of season beans.....

 .....pumpkins of all types, stored away for winter eating........

.....butter swedes and carrots....

.......lovely lavender.....

.........a warm drink after a bit of work..........

......garlics from last year on our high tech drying wall.....

It was a very pleasant way to spend a few hours this morning, and I came home with a nice big bunch of carrots, beetroots and baby turnips.  I must make more effort to go more regularly, I really feel good about what's going on at the garden, it's a great connecting point for our community.

What have you been up to today? 

A visit to The Crib......

Hello! 

The other day I went to our local community garden for a visit.  It's been a while since I was last down there, I really must try and get down there more often, there is so much happening and growing.

I am actually the Treasurer on the garden committee, so I feel quite bad that I don't spend more time there helping out, I go when I can, but life is very hectic and sometimes it's thing like this that get pushed down the priorities list.  I try and compensate by growing lots of seedlings and cuttings to plant in the garden when I am actually there.

....quite a few ladies were working the morning I popped in, they are a hard working bunch and really get things done!  (This is about as busy as it gets though, we only have about 30 members!) 

These are some of the individual plots members can take on for their own growing.

.....we have a frog pond, with lots of edible water plants around the edge......

...and a herb garden.....

...the chookies are a recent addition to the garden, they free range in our orchard, see how they have already eaten and scratched nearly all the grass, they save us a lot of weeding! 

(and we get lots of lovely eggs!)

....there are big communal areas where we grow lots of different vegetables and share the produce with whoever happens to be working there on a Wednesday or Saturday morning.  All members of the garden are entitled to work and harvest from these communal areas and everyone can have a say in what gets grown.  

We have a big site, so there is plenty of space to grow everything people want.  I can't believe more people aren't involved really.  It is such a lovely place to spend some time and the produce is really great, all organically grown and the freshest that you can get!

We started this garden about 6 years ago, and still I meet so many people who have never heard of it!

We have done heaps of advertising, been in the local paper lots of times, won big grants to have the orchard fenced and huge water tanks put in and are next to the community house, but I guess we are just a little town and it is a bit out of the way and set back from the street so people just don't see it.

It's a shame because it is such an asset for our community, I wish more people could enjoy it and the benefits community gardening provide.

So if you live on the Western Port side of the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia, and want to join a great little community garden, come and check out Crib Point Community Garden! 

(Don't actually think any locals read this blog, but you never know...)

(Email me and I'll give you the address, and a tour if you like!!)

Anyhoo, that's probably enough from me now, better go and get the crochet out........

Have a great day!