Seed packing at Gillian's for the Autumn plant fair - Coming Event

 

Grow your own food. We share locally adapted, open-pollinated, non-hybrid seeds, plants & knowledge for edible gardening

Diary Dates

 

Seed packing at Gillian's for the Autumn plant fair

Saturday February 29th, 10:00am-12:00pm

Bellingen Seed Savers will distribute seeds and plants at the Bellingen Autumn Plant Fair. In preparation, we will gather to pack seeds, and share  morning tea and plant knowledge. Gillian's garden is in Fernmount.
 

Coming? RSVP to obtain the address and so we know who’s attending, even if you already know how to get there.
Organiser: Leela O'Callaghan gardenvisits@bellingenseedsavers.com or phone 0417 536 490

Seed & Plant Swaps

Are you looking for particular seeds or plants? Do you have an abundance of something to give away? Email in to news@bellingenseedsavers.com for your search or offer to be put in the newsletter in this section. Can you help? Please contact the person directly.

Lost and found

Have you lost a chair? Did you attend Nick's garden tour in November? We may be able to help as someone left a chair at Nick's. Please send an email to news@bellingenseedsavers.com to arrange reclaiming your chair.

SEED SAVING DETAILS When donating or sharing seeds, please email in the seed information so we know what we have (click the link, the email has the questions ready to fill out) Email: seeds@bellingenseedsavers.com Or fill in this PDF form. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to fill this out digitally. Remember to save each seed info as a separately named file! Or print it out and fill it in by hand.

Shunyam's garden in Bundagen

Twenty two of us made the journey to Bundagen. It was a clear day and the sun had some bight as we toured Shunyam's beautiful garden. Shunyam grows a huge variety and quantity of food. The food comes from three main sources: a large vegetable garden largely under shade cloth, an aquaponics area and many fruiting shrubs and trees.

Shunyam uses exclusion methods to keep pests from beating her to the harvest. Examples included a hoop house for veggies, a bird netting enclosure for her blueberries, insect netting for soft fruits and an upcycled bath tub plus wire netting for growing sweet potatoes rat free! Despite her ingenuity, Shunyam is still finding a determined brush turkey to be a real challenge.

The aquaculture system was very interesting, with two different systems used for plant growing. There were two beds with clay balls that were flood irrigated then allowed to drain. Between these was a bed that had plants on a floating platform with their roots permanently in water.

I think Shunyam's favourite fruits must be mangoes, of which she has several varieties. One which is all eaten by Christmas and another that may not be ripe until almost winter. She also had many avocados with the aim of having ripe avos year round, so perhaps these are her favourites. To overcome poor drainage, more recent avocado plantings are on top of a pile of crusher dust. Shunyam also had many stone fruit varieties and a few olive trees, plus grapes, mulberries, jaboticabas, passionfruit, pawpaws, persimmons, figs, pomegranates, pineapples, two coconuts and many other things.

After the fabulous tour we enjoyed a scrumptious lunch, there were so many good things to eat. Thanks to Shunyam for sharing her garden with us.