Springtime Gardening Tips 2019

September Springtime Gardening Tips was a fountain of knowledge and useful information. The garden was bursting into flowers and fruits and it was a great time to gather and share everyones experience.

Kelle and Bill Dargel from the Fitzroy Nursery began the day with a walk around the garden and the Food Forest. Kelle explained our grand plans and every day hitches while Bill cured them with a simple glance. His knowledge of fruit trees, their disorders and needs was fantastic. Bill gave some great demonstrations of different types of grafting with our Custard Apple tree. This has inspired Kelle to try a 'fruit salad' citrus, with different fruits on different branches of our old orange tree.
Bill brought lots of plants to sell and was a great asset to the weekend. His father was the founder of the Fitzroy Nursery and it is now in its third generation of skilled Nurserymen. They grow and graft 90% of their stock.

Nicola Apps, a passionate permaculturist and teacher took us through the principles of planning a permaculture garden. Her female nurturing energy had us all spell bound as she drew her way through her designs and passions. Nicola came from a more spiritual, mother earth perspective with reverence and respect to our precious earth. She gave us wonderful ways to connect and flow, WILD & FREE.

After lunch, Killian, our resident French Agriculture Student gave us an insight into his project on microbiology. He made a comprehensive compost heap & when it had decomposed he make extract teas. Killian and Kelle started trialling the effects of added synthetic fertilises with devastating effects of the cultured microbiology. Very interesting!

How to make the water slow down the slope.

With a jungle of tomatoes and plenty of basil, Italian was the flavour for our Equinox Celebrations that night. It was a wonderful weekend.  Thanks to Kelle and Killian for an abundant garden of food, Jen for keeping it all running smoothly and everyone else who helped harvest, cook, clean and celebrate. It was another great event!

Jo made the pesto, she got very connected to the whole process and it tasted fantastic!