Successful Open Garden and news of House Concert coming up

Thank you to all of you who attended the Open Garden or who helped to promote it. Thanks also to Huey for organising the lovely weather. We raised several hundred dollars for each of our chosen charities - Permaculture Australia https://permacultureaustralia.org.au and Headspace Greensborough https://headspace.org.au/headspace-centres/greensborough.

The raffle was drawn a bit late, but winners are being notified now, and here are the details: First Prize (Garden Consultation with Virginia) Orange ticket 72C drawn by Jenna Stafford, Second Prize (Mme Alfred Carrier rose) Green ticket 04F drawn by Ted Hall, Third Prize (Sea Foam rose) Yellow ticket 55B drawn by Seer Gall. Congratulations to our winners and thank you for participating.

Finally, I am SO excited to announce that we are hosting a House Concert of the Formidable Vegetable Sound System on December 18th. Bookings are essential. We look forward to seeing some of you again then. https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/formidable-veg-melbourne-permie-house-concert-tickets-52352340259

Preparing for the Open Permaculture Property on November 10-11

Madly hand weeding, watering, mulching (2 truckloads of mulch!), pruning and tidying this very large garden. The raspberries are looking amazing. The winter crops are finishing and I have summer seedlings waiting. The new wicking bed and propagating system are cranking and I now have a sink to wash veg at the back door on the deck. Here are the details of the open garden:

Saturday and Sunday 10 & 11 November from 10am to 4pm

103 Thompson Crescent, Research, Victoria
$10 per person (children under 18 free)

Sprawling outer suburban garden with many fruit trees, chicken system, enclosed veggie garden, interesting examples of permaculture practice including water and energy systems. Large deck and outdoor kitchen with pizza oven. Tours on the hour, free tea/coffee/herbal or soft drink and a home-made treat, as well as a free plant or packet of seeds to take home. Children welcome but no dogs, please.

Funds raised will support two causes - Headspace which supports the mental health of young people, and Permaculture Australia which works on behalf of permaculture people, enterprises and organisations, their ideas and their work all over Australia.

Touch of Winter

I am trying to remember when winter was.

The last leaves are still hanging on a couple of trees, and the Snowflakes and Jonquils are finishing already – so when was the winter point between autumn and spring? Today I saw pink blossoms on a precocious plum and my Pat Austin rose – which I was pruning – had 4 fat flower buds. Were they the last from autumn or the first for spring? Anyway, I cut them off with a few olive leaves and put them in a vase on the table to enjoy along with the first little carrots I pulled, and Arabella’s winter eggs. Thank you Arabella Isa Brown!

The Tour de France is my queue to spray my stone-fruit trees with copper sulphate and to mulch the asparagus plants with seaweed. I read somewhere that you don’t even have to rinse the seawater off the seaweed because asparagus love salt…what would the comfrey and beans nearby think of that though?