Newsletter #45 | September 2025

Kaarin Wilkinson
Sep 28
4 min read

Spring is nature's way of saying, let's party!

Open day Sunday October 19th

Our open day is coming soon. 12-4pm Sunday October 19^th we will have face painting and kids workshop, and a free workshop for gardeners on Water Wise Gardening with the fabulous Sophie Thomson (ABC Gardening and Sophie’s Patch).

Come at 12pm for a free sausage sizzle, browse the stalls with plants for sale, waterwise gardening equipment for Adelaide Hills Vegie beds, honey for Hub Valley Honey and learn ways to help your community from our local Council, Fruit Share and Onkaparinga Food Security Collaborative.

You can help now:

· weed around your bed and further if you have time

· prepare any plants or seedling you can donate to our plant sale

· let us know if you have a portable gazebo we can use on the day

This is a busy time of year for outdoor community events, and we want to make ours special for everyone. Please share this link with family, friends and neighbours: Open Day Tickets, Sun 19/10/2025 at 12:00 pm | Eventbrite

We are grateful to ATCO Australia and Onkaparinga Council who are supporting our open day.

Working Bee

Our next working-bee will be Sunday 12^th October 10am -2pm. This is a week before our Open Day so a chance to get everything tidy, finished off and looking picture perfect. This is an important day for all members and bed holders to come together. Supporting our events is an important part of our being a member of our garden community.

Make it a family event and bring the kids to help.

Annual General Meeting

As a registered not for profit association (Midcoast Sustainability Inc), Seaford Wetlands Community Garden is required to have an AGM annually. All members are invited to attend to hear about our developments and plans and how our finances are going. We also want your feedback and ideas on ways to make things better for everyone. We welcome new committee members, especially after having two members retire from the committee this year. This is not an onerous task with evening meetings monthly and other communication via WhatsApp and email. We know our members have valuable skills and ideas to contribute. Please keep Wednesday 19^th November 7pm-8.30pm free so you can attend.

Memberships 2025-26

A reminder that membership payments and annual fees for raised bed holders are now overdue. A new metal gate will be installed soon. Once this is completed the southern gate will no longer be accessible from outside the garden. The new gate will also have a new lock and code and only those who have paid their 2025-26 fees will be given the new code. Please visit our website to make your payments.

Reminders about maintaining your raised bed

· Please remember to weed around your raised bed regularly. This makes the task of weed management a shared role and easier for everyone. When one person lets weeds grow and seed it affects all gardeners. Remember the saying one year's seed makes for seven years of weeds.

· Bed holders please also ensure that you keep your plants within your bed and install trellising over your bed if you have climbers. There is rio mesh available for this. The areas around the beds need to be kept free of vines and other plants that may create a tripping hazard.

· There are a few plants which due to their prolific seeding are causing some issues, a bit like weeds in the raised bed area. If you have Nasturtium (picture above) growing in your raised bed, please remove and place in one of the green bins for removal to commercial composting.

From the Committee

We now have created a members’ area in the green house where members can have a small space to start their spring seedlings.
Reminder- liquid fertiliser and garden tools are available in the members shed (the small shed). Please ensure you clean tools and then return to the shed. Soil and mulch are also available to bed holders.
There is now a bin in the shed for putting in damaged and broken tools.

Bunnings BBQs

We have cancelled our October barbeque as it was scheduled for Saturday October 18^th and we need our volunteers to be fresh and ready for the open day on Sunday 19th.

Regular events

Fortnightly Fridays and Thursdays 9.30am -11.30am

Every Friday fortnight gardeners and volunteers meet at the garden to do a few of the regular maintenance tasks, tend their own beds and stay share gardening stories together over morning tea.

Coming dates are

October 10th
October 24th

Driving and Parking cars at the Garden

Please do not drive vehicles on to the garden lease area unless you have express permission from one of the committee to deliver materials or equipment. Please also do not park in the Ambulance/CFS car parks and in Grange and Somerton Courts.

This project was seeded by

Our Committee

Our committee is Kaarin Wilkinson, Jan Brown, Jennie Simon and Roger Whiteman. If you have any questions or ideas please contact us via Facebook , on our website, on the Seaford Wetlands Gardeners WhatsApp chat or on the garden email seafordcg@gmail.com.