[LUCAS]:

[The original Betty-Bed, just before we started reshaping…]

Here’s the new garden bed that Betty from the cafe (along with her crack team of hand-picked students) built a few weeks ago. At the time, Betty said:

“It’s nothing special, the shape of the bed and everything can be modified later, it’s just to get something in and growing first, and worry about all that down the track.”

So this week the boss and I decided the time was right to reshape the Betty Bed.

Our main concern – besides aesthetics (as Betty says, square isn’t the prettiest shape for a garden) was depth. We wanted to reduce the footprint of the bed, make it a bit smaller, so that the soil in there could be a bit deeper in sections. Inspired by Cecilia’s bed, we decided to create a diversity of shapes, depths and micro-zones within this bed.

We began by chopping into the front corner, raising the sandstone blocks taller so they’d support more soil within:

Humming away in dirt-under-fingernails contentment, we inserted an old plastic plant pot as our new resident pond; on the right hand side of this picture you can also see the little niche we installed, for fun as much as for any other reason:

Along the way, We encountered a few creatures which indicated there is sufficient moisture present, at present, to support such biodiversity:

(I believe Heather relocated this fellow to “the bottom of the garden”. And that’s actually not a euphemism, she really did that.)

The sun came up, and we replanted all the seedlings which we’d had to temporarily remove while reshaping:

And here’s the “finished product” (with all due acknowledgement, of course, that at Tending, there is no such thing):

Besides incessantly chatting and bickering with each other, socially, it was a quiet day at Tending. Not many human visitors. After reshaping Betty’s bed, we stopped to admire the lushness of our brassicas:

We watched the rains come in:

And some local faulty engineering made us consider the possibility of water harvesting:

Finally, we “obtained a yield” – sharing some of our abundant lettuce and mustard greens crop with a couple of friendly students who were sheltering from the storm:

-Til next week, Tenders!

Here’s an announcement from Heather, about a talk by Jill Finnane which is happening TONIGHT, Tuesday October 19th.

Jill wrote the book “Lawns into Lunch” which features Betty, the lady who runs the cafe here at SCA!

Permaculture Inner West is very excited that Jill Finnane is coming to talk about her book, FROM LAWNS TO LUNCH.

We’ll be in the usual space – Leichhardt School of Arts, next to the fire station, almost on the
corner of Marion St and Balmain Rd, Leichhardt.

The meeting starts at 7.00 pm but refreshments will be on tap from 6.30 pm.

We all tend to bring a little something to share.

It would be helpful to know if you’re able to come but only if you’ve not already replied.

See you there.

Heather

[LUCAS]:

Betty summoned us to Tending on Tuesday last week, rather than the usual Thursday. Why? She decided to take half a day off her work in the Cafe, to make her own garden bed!

This post briefly documents the whirlwind of activity – thanks to Betty and her team – which saw our growable bed area at Tending double in just one day.

It’s probably well-known across campus that Betty is a great gardener. But I’m not sure how many staff and students would be aware that she and her “Marrickville Jungle” are actually featured in the book Lawns into Lunch: growing food in the city by Jill Finnane:

Since the cafe shifted location, from its corner spot last year to the current, more central, location, Betty says that (for some reason I haven’t yet been able to grasp) she’s not allowed to grow herbs in pots on site. So she was really keen to get involved in our garden right from the beginning. She’s been bringing us her coffee grounds and food scraps for the compost; and I’m really looking forward to the time when the garden gets productive enough for her to harvest lettuces and herbs to actually use in the cafe.

Anyway – she rustled up a few keen students – notably Yumi, a photo-media artist with no prior gardening experience; and Dan, a graduate of the glass-making programme at SCA: a keen gardener himself.

Here’s Dan, who arrived with some really healthy-looking seedlings from his own home nursery:

– these are Dan’s chili seedlings – hundreds of them!

Betty started by putting down a layer of cardboard boxes – mostly packaging from cafe deliveries:

(That’s Yumi with the orange skirt, and regular Tend-er-er Lisa in the middle).

Next, Betty laid down some leaves and branches she brought from home, as well as some compostables from the cafe (including coffee grounds):

Then we loaded on all 9 sacks of soil I had been holding in reserve for this moment (thanks again to Rachel from freecycle for the soil from her yard!):

By this stage, Heather had arrived to help out too, and also Jess, who took these photos. Heather and I went to grab a few more wheelbarrows full of leaves from one of the nearby courtyards, to bulk up the bed.

And then it was time for lunch! Betty had prepared the most delicious feast for us, fried spicey potatoes and sticky rice and taboulli, served on banana leaves – all the packaging went into the garden bed at the end of the meal!

As a nice surprise, Ross, our benevolent overlord showed up just in time for lunch. This is his first time visiting the garden when we’ve been in full swing, and he was very pleased to find us all in action. (Note Ross’ good taste in hats).

Dan and I got back to work, heaving some of sandstone blocks to the site with the help of, at first the wheelbarrow, and later, his station wagon. Here you can see the blocks starting to shape up around the sides of the emergent bed:

And in the above photo, more people! Word was getting around that the garden was open – it seems that people love coming along to lounge and enjoy the sight of bucolic labourers. (Above are Susan, Bec and her son; and Lizzie who is working with Betty, already starting to plant-out the bed.

The bed shaping up:

A mini water-feature embedded, with watercress:

The proud artist having done her work for the day:

Later that evening, Lisa sent me a text message:

Man I am pooped! I
am SO impressed
by Betty. She’s the
real deal. It’s like
SCA is her village.
Thanks for the fun,
L x

Betty says: “It’s nothing special, the shape of the bed and everything can be modified later, it’s just to get something in and growing first, and worry about all that down the track.”

[LUCAS]:

Last Friday was a big day for me at Tending. It had lots of parts to it. The Boss was still down in Bundanon surrounded by all the nettles he could brew up into his special soup, so I was left to my own devices at the urban college cloister garden.

But what good fortune to be visited by such great folks!

Here above is Vanessa, who arrived with her special book “Old Wives Lore for Gardeners”. She was particularly impressed with one particular piece of advice:

We haven’t gotten nude yet at Tending – but it is warming up! – to the point where I spent all day on Friday in bare feet. The ancient tough scratchy grass feels wonderful on the foot-skin, and even some of the squishy bits in the compost didn’t bother me, it was all so balmy and comfortable.

Speaking of compost, when we were turning it this week, we discovered some wondrous little fungus growing towards the bottom of the heap:

Back to Vanessa: she brought a plant to add to the “rockery” plot – a wormwood! She said, “I thought the art students could do some research and work out how to make it into Absinthe!”

Here she is, having just installed the newest member of our herbal family:

Friday also involved a visit from guest-gardener Mikey, one of the world’s foremost artichoke enthusiasts. He keeps this blog on the subject.

I’ve been hoping that Mikey would visit for some time, to establish a dedicated artichoke patch at Tending. Artichokes take a few years to bear fruit, but we must think long term!

As it turns out, artichoke seeds are a bit hard to find in Sydney – but Mikey had smuggled some back from Italy. He had them wrapped up in this bandage and sticky tape package:

In the end, Mikey decided to take his seeds away and plant them at his father’s house. One of the problems we’ve been having with Tending of late is that our seedlings suffer from a lack of daily attention (as we are only on-site once a week). Once Mikey’s seedlings establish themselves, we can bring them back and put some into our garden.

We also had a visit from Alana and Ingrid – who had already set themselves up for luncheon on the grass when Mikey and I arrived. Ingrid is just finishing her Masters here at SCA, and Alana finished studying here a few years ago.

I love the idea that the garden begins to attract lunchers and loungers – but in order to faciliate this, we need to sort out a better access system – at the moment to get into the garden depends on summoning the (friendly) security staff – something of a barrier to participation…

So we joined the ladies on the lawn – at the right is Mikey, and behind him, hiding from the lens, is Heather:

…and we ourselves lunched on bread and cheese, and from the garden: freshly picked lettuce and wasabi greens!

Lisa brought more sugarcane from her own patch at home. Our existing cane, courtesy of Betty, has been struggling somewhat – we’re not sure why… We’re just watching it, watering it, hoping it comes good…

And Lisa also brought some more arcane knowledge: seed dowsing. Here she is, practising this dark art:

Apparently, when you hold the shell on the thread over the seed, it rotates in a particular direction depending on whether the seed has ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ energy – which helps identify its potential for germination.

I’m hoping Lisa might chime in here to remind me exactly which direction is “good”…

The final news in this week’s episode is that the potatoes (all three systems) are growing at an alarmingly rapid rate. It’s all we can do to keep up with them, heaping more mulch and soil on top to suppress the leaves and encourage the tubers:

Here are the taties in the chickenwire-mulch system.

Here they are, thriving in the (possibly filled with poisonous heavy-metals) car-tyre system…

And – a bit slower than the rest, because planted later – here are the gourmet small potatoes which we put directly into the rather poor SCA soil…

[LUCAS]:

Grant, the facilities manager at Sydney College of the Arts, dug up this historical image of the very site of Tending. It’s amazing to think that it once was a thriving lush garden!

And so it will be again!

Along similar, inspirational lines – Lisa, one of Tending’s regulars and my Petersham gardening comrade, sent through the following message:

hey Lucas I was reading these beautiful gathas – kind of short buddhist-y mindfulness prayers – by Robert Aitken this morning, and they put me in mind of your jumble of passions right now…

Preparing the garden for seeds
I vow with all beings
to nurture the soil to be fertile
each spring for the next thousand years

*

With tropical forests in danger
I vow with all beings
to raise hell with the people responsible
and slash my consumption of trees

*

Watching gardeners label their plants
I vow with all beings
to practice the old horticulture
and let plants identify me