[LUCAS]:

Hot lazy days. Gardening gets you away from the computer. The smells of earth, compost, straw, fresh basil and tomatoes. Visits by Maria and Aanya and young Rufus from Balmain. Gilbert from Dulwich Hill arrives with a bike trailer, self sufficient, intent on scent. Installs a curry tree, a lemongrass border. Surprises: sunflowers growing themselves. Diego takes to the mowing. Some sort of animal helping itself to the tomatoes. Too many radishes, thin them out. Watermelons starting to emerge. Mustard greens gone to seed, shake them in a bucket, gather the seeds, plant them again in old cardboard toilet rolls. A new blackboard for local communication.

[LUCAS]:

This week, in the lead up to Christmas, we were delighted to have a visit from our young friends Isaac and Myles (and their folks, Damien and Kylie).

The tops of our potatoes had begun to die back, which was perfect timing. To keep the youngsters entertained, we pointed them in the direction of the subterranean spuds and watched them go! It’s such fun to rummage around under the soil, discovering a fresh harvest with your fingers. What a great harvest (and it’s only the beginning!)

Damien also discovered the first tomato of the season (which he pinched from Alex’s very lush mini-garden bed).

We had it sliced on fresh bread for lunch.

Soon after lunch, Alex herself arrived, with a cohort of “bull-ladies”. This was a sculpture which has just been exhibited at the Sydney College of the Arts end of year show. It seems that Tending is to become its new home. How odd!

Later, we rediscovered (via our visiting 5 year old) that a hose is not just for watering plants. Here’s Damien, victim of underage hydration torture:

And here’s Damien, torturing us all back, by removing most of his clothing. (In the background you can see that crazy bull in-situ).

[Thanks to Lisa for this hilarious photo].

Thanks for a great first six months, Tenders! Happy new year, I leave you with another small harvest for this week, a ‘mini-cabbage’:

[LUCAS]:

This map was drawn by Aanya, who rocked up on Thursday to inject a bunch of new energy into Tending. Aanya, many years ago, did a permaculture course, and she has that great casual confidence that comes from years of gardening experience. Her garden, in Balmain, is not quite big enough for her to realise her dirty dreams. Luckily Tending can accommodate her needs, and harness her enthusiasm!

Aanya set to work, laying out cardboard to keep down the grass, raiding the compost bin for good soil, and planting a bunch of seeds she brought along with her.

In the meantime she set Diego and Heather to work, pulling up an abundance of green stuff from around the courtyard to act as a nitrogen rich base for her new bed.

More soil, donated by our friendly Callan Park gardener on top…

Watering it all in:

…while I supervised (the hammock is actually an artwork by Alex, one of Tending’s regular student enthusiasts):

Each year, Michelle Margolis, friend of TENDING, with her partner David, compiles, designs and publishes a great Permaculture Diary and Calendar.

As we’re coming up to Christmas, you could do worse than to solve your gift deficiencies with these beautifully printed timekeeping technologies. Here’s where you get em…

[LUCAS]:

For ages The Boss and I have been wanting to make a sign. One of the (small?) issues with the TENDING garden has been that people really need to bump into us by chance, to find out what the garden is about, and how it works.

One big advance in recent weeks has been that the courtyard where the garden is situated is being left unlocked during the day – so that staff and students can wander in and out at will, and enjoy the space to hang out, eat their lunch, plant stuff…

This week, The Boss had a small mishap in the kitchen before he left home, involving a pair of scissors and a large accidental gash in his finger. So he was missing in action, and I had to make the above sign on my own.

The back of an old plywood panel is screwed to a garden stake, with the lettering created by cut out shapes of adhesive contact vinyl (thanks to Sara for the vinyl). It’s certainly not permanent – but it’s a start…

The next steps include adding the URL of this website, and also setting up a large blackboard so that we can begin to map out everything that’s currently in the garden.

It’s end-of-year exhibition time at Sydney College of the Arts, and students are strutting around pleased with themselves (undergrads), or else putting the final touches on their masterpieces (masters candidates). Alex, who has just set up an installation of her work involving brightly coloured hammocks suspended between some of the pillars around the college, kindly came and custom-strung one for us!

Here she is, using it:

It was a very relaxed week at TENDING. Besides Alex’s visit (she fed some “fish emulsion” to her tiny tomato garden which she built a few weeks back), I had lunch with Barbara and Margaret; Sara came to water her letters-artwork; and of course, Heather popped in to oversee the proceedings.

Heather is always pushing to make the garden a more happening place. There’s talk of an “earthbag” construction workshop by these guys, wormfarming courses, and film screenings. And as the summer gets nearer, it could indeed be wonderful to have some outdoor events here (depending on whether the college permits that sort of thing, I have no idea what their policy is in that regard!).

Finally, a photo of the space where Liz Day farmed her grass, which is now on show at the Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre in Western Sydney. I really like this ‘negative space’ – and you can see our little shed in the corner…