"My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece"
Claude Monet (1840 - 1926)
Claude Monet and his family settled in Giverny, France in 1883 on a block of about one hectare, with a house, walled garden and orchard. Over the next 43 years he created a wonderful garden (with the help of his team of gardeners) and spent much of his time developing a passion for botany and painting scenes from his garden. The house and garden continue to thrive today and 400,000 visitors a year from all over the world pay homage to the great Impressionist artist and his garden.
Meanwhile in the Seaford Wetlands we are busy working on our own masterpiece and like Monet's garden at Giverny, we are looking for our community's contribution with design ideas and help to bring it to fruition. We have a meeting on Wednesday 1st March that will give members the opportunity to really get involved with the design and action process. Please check the details below and get in touch if you would like to be a part of this opportunity.
Our leading photo today comes from the kitchen of Mel NJ with a selection of superb tomatoes grown in her garden this summer - great job Mel!
Have your say in the design features of our community garden at our members' meeting
Please check your recent emails for an invitation via Eventbrite to our free members' meeting which will be held at the Seaford Community Centre, Beechwood Grove, Seaford 5169 on Wednesday 1st March 6.30pm or get in touch with our organisers by email.
Mid Coast Sustainability Inc. will conduct its first Annual General Meeting on Thursday 30th March - venue and time TBA
New hose reels installed
Many thanks to Rory for installing a hose reel for each circle of beds. They make watering much easier and safer now we don't have lengths of hoses on the ground. Simply turn on the tap, stretch the hose to your garden and release the hose quickly to lock it in position. To return the hose, turn off the tap and vent the water. Then pull gently towards you to release, and guide the hose slowly to the reel.
The Shed is on its way!
The entrance and shed area has been paved thanks to Tony, Scott, Rory and Wayne. The shed will be collected this week and will be erected on this area soon. Great work everyone!
We have compost bins!
Rory and Tony have set up our compost bins using some of our donated pallets for the frames.
Our new compost bins in the background sharing the stage with one of our most recent additions - a dwarf banana kindly donated to the garden by Janis and flanked by its Lego guardians (that some of the children have already discovered and visit regularly) Click on the button below to download an excellent booklet on composting by the City of Onkaparinga.
And we have worm farms!
The two worm farms are tucked in the shade behind the compost bins. These little guys need to remain cool and with just the right amount of moisture in the compost inside. Not too wet or too dry. They will be looked after by their carers who will also feed them with a regular diet of food scraps.
Fundraising BBQs
With all the activity we have had this year our working funds are rather depleted. We do have a generous grant from Green Adelaide (check out their link below for a very informative website) but it doesn't cover expenses such as sheds, tools, fences etc. One of our useful avenues of fundraising has been conducting BBQs at Seaford Bunnings. We have signed up for two BBQs at this stage and we are seeking help to run these from our membership and friends. If you can help for a couple of hours or more on either or both of these two days we'd love to hear from you. The dates are:
Sunday 26th March and Sunday 30th April - we operate from 8.30am - 4pm
Please drop us an email to seafordcg@gmail.com.
This project was seeded by
Our Committee
Our committee is Rory Fitzsimons (Chair), Kaarin Wilkinson, Tony Watkin, Jan Brown, Melissa Styles and Wayne Good. If you have any questions or ideas please contact us via Facebook, on our website or on the Seaford Wetlands Gardeners chat.