Sprouts Club autumn update

How wonderful was it to see the community engaged at the autumn mini-market stall. The kids promoted, set up, ticketed and sold produce they grew in the garden.

Busy preparing for the stall happened over several weeks, making preserves from excess produce, designing preserve labels, saving seeds and making seed packets and balls, using their artistic skills to decorate bunting and marketing signs, growing seedlings and harvest an abundance of fresh produce and flowers to sell.

Congratulations Sprouts Club with over $500 raised to go towards another project. Big thank you to volunteers and parents who each bought skills to make this work.

As we move into the last month of Autumn we've been making the most of this Indian Summer planting autumn/winter crops before the weather changes. Activity will decelerate as beds fill, temperatures cool and growth slows.

• Mulching seedlings with lucerne to help kickstart their growth and to feed the soil. Row covers are in place to protect from strong winds, pests and hungry birds.

• Removing spent crops, chopping them small and composting layers of greens and browns and adding an activator.

• It's an important time of the year to forage organic matter of autumn leaves, manures, hay, straw and woodchips. A balance of greens and browns and an activator = garden gold come spring.

On the garden to-do list

• Succession sow brassicas, snow peas, beetroot, spring onions and carrots for a mid to late winter harvest.

• Regular weekly or fortnightly liquid feeding of the heavy feeders of brassicas, leafy greens, leeks and celery will help give them a boost and keep them healthy.

• Sowing companion plants like snapdragons, larkspur, stocks and cornflowers if space allows.

• Now is the time to be cutting back the perennials as they die down for Winter.

• Continue to build worm and microbial highways between beds by mulching the paths with wood chips.

• Fill every space with a greencrop, herbs, flowers or leafy greens. Leave no bare earth. At the very least keep the beds mulched to protect and feed the soil.

• Leaves are now turning gold and starting to fall marking the end of their main growth cycle and the beginning of another as the leaves give back to the soil.

• Feeding the natives plantings with Neutrog's bush tucker as they begin their flowering cycle.

Upcoming dates for Sprouts Club

• After school gardening program 2-3pm or 4-4.45pm on 7th, 14th and 28 May | 4th, 11th & 25 June | 2nd, 23rd and 30th July | 6th, 13th and 27th August

• Kids in the Kitchen sessions on 21st May, 18th June, 9th July, 20th August

• 16th July - Fun with fungi mushroom focussed session
  

Book your Sprouts Club spot now!