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Friday, June 7, 2013

Beelarong Community Farm...

For a while now, I've been reading the blog  written by a fellow Brisbane resident, Jean. Jean's blog is 'Allotment Adventures with Jean' in which she writes about her 2 allotments and all the wonderful things that she grows in these 2 plots.  Last Wednesday DH and I visited Jean at Beelarong Community Farm which is in the suburb of Morningside, and what a wonderful morning it was.

Here is Jean standing beside one of the new garden beds that have been built to a height to enable gardeners in wheelchairs to tend the garden. To the left of the photo is the new, wide concrete path which Jean said was also designed to allow people in wheelchairs to be able to move easily around  the garden..

The time just flew as there was so much to see and it was so good meeting  so many of the members who do so much to keep this community resource running smoothly. You can read about Beelarong Farm here. You know me...I took quite a few photos as Jean showed us around... :-)

This is the Windy Loo which  is a trade name for this type of toilet (flushing compostable, sustainable) ...just in front of the camera is a very healthy, if rather rampant, choko vine :-)

The building with the green guttering in the background is where DH and I had morning tea with Jean and the other gardeners...including a delicious pizza which had been made using ingredients picked from the garden!

This garden bed was brought in, filled with soil etc and then planted by some university students...

Some lovely looking tomatoes here and some silverbeet...
 The photo below the is of the board which shows all the details of the waste water system...


The worm farm area...

There is a large community garden bed as well as individual allotments....

Some rosella bushes just covered in fruit. Jean wrote a recent post on how the members got to make some rosella jam :-) The lady on the right of the photos comes in on a regular basis and works hard weeding etc....sound like a real treasure!!

I admired/drooled over these healthy thriving eggplants. Jean said that were in Craig's allotment. DH and I met Craig during morning tea and he has just become a father for the first time!

here Jean is showing us her allotments; Jean has an amazing variety of plants in this space and everything is thriving!

Jean commented that these silverbeet plants have grown so much just in the last week!

These compost bins were designed and built by one of the members. The design allows them to be rotated each week, making compost rather quicker that way.



We had a lovely morning visiting Jean and the other members of the community farm. The visit inspired me to rejuvenate some of my veggie beds ready for some winter and spring planting. Thank you Jean, it was great!

Now I mentioned that we were offered slices of delicious homemade pizza at morning tea...well this is the cob oven that was made by the group and is used to bake quite a variety of goodies.

7 comments:

Janice said...

What a wonderful place, full of fantastic environmental wisdom. I would love to visit this brilliant garden. Jx

Dorothy said...

Wow, tomatoes at this time of year !!!! What a great garden - I need one of those raised beds but then on the other hand maybe I don't as everything I try to grow dies. Just don't have a green thumb, unfortunately. Have a great weekend. xox

Dorothy said...

Wow, tomatoes at this time of year !!!! What a great garden - I need one of those raised beds but then on the other hand maybe I don't as everything I try to grow dies. Just don't have a green thumb, unfortunately. Have a great weekend. xox

Anonymous said...

Dear Maria. So pleased you enjoyed your visit to Beelarong. I really enjoyed showing you and DH around. PS. I am trying to respond to your email this morning but I'm having trouble sending it for some reason. I'll try later. Best wishes. Jean.

Anonymous said...

so good to see what a group of people can do,very inspiring.xx

Marilyn said...

Thank you for sharing about your visit to Jean and the allotment. Sounds like a wonderful place.

Susan said...

Such an interesting post Maria. I loved seeing around the allotment. Everything is thriving. Love the design of those compost containers too!