April 'Seedy Sunday' & Autumn Planting

Last month we had a great turn up for our Root Crops Workshop and shared lots of tips, seeds and plant material around the table. According to the moon calendar, the 6th, 7th, 27th and 28th April are ideal days to continue to plant your root vegetables and bulbs including garlic, beetroot, radishes, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and turnips so start planning now!

The root crops we talked about growing in Autumn

At the next 'Seedy Sunday' (7th April from 8.30am - 10.30am), Autumn planting continues so come along and share any surplus produce, seeds or cuttings that are growing well in your garden at this time of year. If the weather is kind and not wet or humid, we'll process more seeds to share/swap.

Autumn Planting 

Ideally, get your above ground crops like lettuce, peas, a variety of herbs, dwarf beans, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Asian greens, cabbage, chard and silver beet planted between the 12th and 22nd as this is the time when the high sap run produces strong growth. It's also an ideal time to take cuttings, sow your flowers, divide plants and liquid fertilise your crops.

Beetroot seedlings ready for planting

You can prepare your soil and garden now for planting by adding more organic matter like compost, rock minerals and mulch. After heavy rains, many nutrients will have leached and leafy greens need plenty of nitrogen so ensure you top up your garden with organic soil conditioners or blood and bone to replenish your soil.

Sweethearts Cafe provides a relaxed informal atmosphere where we can enjoy a social and learning experience, sharing local knowledge and building resilience into our gardens at the same time. Plus they have delicious local and organic food and coffee.

What to Bring on the Day (if you can!)

If you have any seeds or plant material to share, please feel free to bring this along. We'll have our seed bank and some local seeds to process (weather permitting). To enable more hands-on activity, it would be helpful if you could please bring any of the following:

• any spare shallow trays or plates (this enables us to sort and blow off chaff)
• sieves & strainers (kitchen sieves of any size are useful to remove chaff from seeds)
• teaspoons (for measuring into bags)
• pastry or artist brushes (for brushing away chaff from seed)

The more of these materials we have, the more engaged people can get involved in the various stages of seed processing. Bring a recycled plastic bag/newspaper to take plant material home.

Sweethearts Cafe offer us a large space to meet for free (saving us a hall hire fee so no cost to you) but as a business are in effect hiring out that area to us for a couple of hours. So as a courtesy please remember to at the very least order a tea/coffee or a yummy breakfast, to support the cafe. They have a delicious local & organic menu. Visit their website for more info @ http://www.sweetheartscafe.com.au/aboutus.html.

Venue: 2 Anzac Street (cnr Rosebed Street), Eudlo.

FREE to attend so bring a friend and carpool!

By Anne Gibson