Garden Club

We have never bought soil at our Garden Club; the process begins by collecting all the fallen leaves during Autumn and Jacaranda Blossom during the late Spring.  Many of our members enjoy sweeping and gathering the leaves and blossoms, I certainly get involved since it gives me a good workout before school.

The piles are gathered on to the garden bed or in individual 20L buckets (which we have converted into gardening pots).  To initiate the soil making, we add spent charcoal (given by Nicolas B’s Family).  Charcoal provides many minerals essential for plant growth and promotes more flower growth.  Then worm casting is added to the garden bed and watered through.  The castings and the worms make the soil into the living organism turning the leaves and blossoms into nutrients the crops can absorb.

The pile starts with a height of about 70cm high and over a few weeks the pile will reduce in height, by natural decomposition and using a weighted layering technique developed in Garden Club called “Dragon Skin”.  These are the lids of the 20L buckets layered so the leaves are weighted and cannot blow away.

Sometimes our school will have a special event, and a coffee van would leave their coffee grinds, which is good for enriching the soil and a repellent for snails too.  Nicole from the Parish Office also provides the Garden Club with shredded paper which we process through the worm farm and during soil production.  We also receive paper from Mrs. Wood the Music Teacher every year.  Where we make a blanket for the worm farm and to block any unwanted plant growth in a section of our garden bed.