Wear your badge with pride!

Ms Tagalong and Ms Mova never let the grass grow under their feet, so to speak! They see an opportunity and grasp the nettle! Stop the punning, we hear you say. 
 
Those of you who assidiously peruse each Facebook update with a fine toothcomb might have noticed the references to Timebanking. 
 
'What is it all about?' asked Ms Mova. Ms Tagalong was slurping her japanese noodles and trying to explain. 
 
'Well you know how our lovely volunteers come along to the garden and help, this actually encourages them more.' (As if the lure of the garden is not enough!)
 
'As they accrue hours of volunteering they can use these to maybe find another service someone else on Timebanking is offering. Like, perhaps, someone to paint their house,' she stopped, thinking of the unfinished painting on the front of her house! 
 
Ms Mova agreed that it sounded like a good idea and ate the last dumpling!
 
'So what do we do now?' she asked. 
 
'Well, I will register us as an organisation and then encourage all our participants to register too.'
 
Ms Mova's eyes glazed over, she was thinking of the massage she might need and probably could get from registering on Timebanking. 

 
So there we are; Tighes Hill Community Garden all registered and ready to go. 
 
Roll up, roll up for the next working bee and be able to claim hours!
 
Click on the link to register folks and remember you don't have to volunteer for an organisation like us to do so. 
 
Any questions or comments gratefully received and answered to the best of our ability! 

Sandhills? Verdant green hills...

Ms Tagalong just saw this wonderful tromboncino squash whilst twittering. Thank you Figjamandlimecordial for the permission to use your lovely photo and teach us community gardeners something about them. Would these be good stir fried? 

*****

Whither goest thou?

Not from whence she came, certainly. And about whom are we talking?

Ms Tagalong, of course. After an exciting day at the Newcastle Writers Fest Ms Tagalong wandered in the cool Autumn evening looking for a haven before the train came in to whisk her back to the far-flung lake suburb, her temporary residence.

Downtown Newcastle. Newcastle CBD. Sandhills! The community garden for Newcastle East beckoned.

She apologises for the lack of photos in this post. A rather less than smart phone sent back images of less rather than more pixels!

Approaching through the old railway sheds she was gratified to see the verdant beds and banks spilling over the tyre walls.

A battered beige hat, once seen adorning the the cover of the Newcastle Yellow Pages, came into view behind the feathery asparagus.

'I'm just a caretaker now,' said Chris, 'everything's done really. If someone has the energy for a project like that wall over there, that's great!'

She shrugged and said she was happy to come and potter and take enough for a stir-fry or a salad.

'We have lots of visitors, people come and picnic or play in here. I just wish they wouldn't pick things so young,' she added.

Conspiratorily she moved aside frothy asparagus fronds displaying some thrusting young spears.

'They're great in a stir-fry,' she grinned.

Bidding her farewell Ms Tagalong sniffed and touched, tasted and chewed her way around every bed. Grabbing a handful of rocket, mustard lettuce and a lemongrass stalk she was glad Sandhills was still thriving!  

By the way, what is your favourite vegetable, usual or unusual, to stir-fry?

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

A young woman's fancy?

Ms Tagalong sits on her antipodean deck in the cool of the Autumn morning perusing the beautifully written guest post by her friend the blogger Maddie Grigg. She too is having a 'grown-up' gap year; in fact a Big Fat GapYear in Corfu and presently marvelling at the spring flowers as they tentatively emerge from a grasping European Winter.

Spring in Corfu is like nowhere on earth. There are endless magic carpets of flowers at your feet, on the roadsides and blooms in any nook or cranny open to the elements.

I have exchanged my life in the UK for a year in this Ionian island and I am homesick beyond measure. But the spring flowers, oh, you should see them.

I am a country child, whose soul comes alive at the sight of such beauty. I am too practical to be religious but when I see the wild flowers of Corfu, I can imagine them being painted by a team of gods and demi-gods.

‘Pass me the crimson,’ Gaea, the Mother Earth, says to a dryad with a box of watercolours as the god Pan leans back on the trunk of an olive tree, playing a merry tune on his pipes.

There are vast clumps of wild honesty so purple they could belong to royalty. There are grape hyacinths and delicate violets. In the olive groves, great drifts of daisies mingle with swathes of small and delicate pink geraniums and marigolds.

Here and there are solitary anemones, cerise and upright, their petals drawn around a dark centre by a child.

Jonquils march across swampy fields and great yellow flowers from the pea family lurk in clumps, waiting to pounce. Euphorbia is euphoric in sulphur yellow shouty-ness while variegated thistle stalks the ground, SAS-style, concealing the spikes beneath.

Greece has more species of flowering plants and ferns than any other country in Europe. There are some 6,000, six times more than France and making the British Isle’s 2,300 seem paltry in comparison.

This country is going through austerity measures, but you would never know that on a stroll through the olive groves. The wild flowers make me happy to be alive.

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Figet the funding..we're still going strong..

'Yeah, you're right, they must have known I was off that day.'

Ms Tagalong was eavesdropping. She was admiring the incredible fluffy Chinese silkies at the Fig Tree Community Garden.

Yes this is a fluffy chicken!

The long, tall caretaker was chatting away about the loss of a cockerel a few weeks ago.

Whoever stole it, stealthily replaced it with a large one of an inferior breed. Did they really think no-one would notice?

Figtree seems to have undergone a few changes in the year Mr Ideasman and Ms Tagalong have been gadding about on their 'grown-up' gap year.

Gone is the large chicken run with geodesic dome coop.

Gone is the funding for a three day a week co-ordinator.

Gone are some of the beds as true community plantings; now seemingly 'owned' by an 'Emmy' or a 'Jo'.

Some things don't change; what still remains is the wonderful pizza oven and the party venue tucked away at the back. That's why our illustrious duo were there saying farewell to friends heading South. A great spot for a goodbye party. Which is your favourite community garden for a party?

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Growing patience

On her return from overseas Ms Tagalong was very excited about reacquainting herself with Warners Bay Community Garden and viewing their new abode.

Alack and alas, her recent queries discovered that nary a sod has yet been turned. They have a banner. They have volunteers. They have the know-how. What they don't have yet is a garden.

'We do have approval from the council,' said Ian cheerfully, as Ms Tagalong purchased coriander and mizuma seedlings happily wrapped in newspaper pots. The prominent stall at the recent Farmer's Market at Speers Point was bulging with seedlings, worm wee and volunteers.

How active, how busy and devoted the group are. Four and a half years in the making and still counting until they sow their first seed in the selected Cherry Road spot.

How smug did Ms Tagalong feel? Thankfully she decided not to gloat about how guerilla gardens are the way to go. 

No approval needed, just find an unused plot, gather a few extremely keen gardeners, appropriate the land and start growing!

Of course you may come up with a little resistance. Grow Food, Not Lawns has many photos of upturned guerilla plots! (So glad we have a new fence!) But so many more of wonderful green growing spaces.

Which is your favourite photo or idea that could be incorporated into a local community garden?

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Lilly Pilly or Lilli Pilli?

Well, there were no suggestions out there on a Twitter plea for what to do with these gorgeously coloured lilly pilly berries !

The delicate creamy, puffy blossoms are followed by this mouthwatering fruit tasting of a cross between a Jamaican otaheiti apple and a crunchy pear with cinnamon and allspice overtones.

Oh but wait, that is why Ms Tagalong is reminded of otaheite apples; they are from the same family. When in doubt look up those botanical names! 

Lilly pilly - Syzygium oleosum

Otaheite apples - Syzygium samarangense. Well I never. 

Both have their origins in the South Pacific and are delicious stewed or crushed with ginger.

So what did Ms Tagalong do with hers?

She boiled and simmered them in water for about 10 minutes just covering the fruit in the pan.

She drained them.

She made a syrup of brown sugar, mixed peppercorns, bayleaf and some grated ginger and boiled until thickened.

She de-stoned the fruit, once cooled, easy as they were now very soft.

Finally the berries were placed back in the syrup and blended to form a sort of thick sauce. (Bay leaf extracted of course!)

Finished product, a jar of piquant sauce to be enjoyed hot or cold with lamb chops, vegetable kebabs or anything you like really!

Any other ideas for this wonderful abundant fruit gratefully received!

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.

Heaps and heaps of work!

So there was Ms Tagalong's great opportunity to get in amongst it again. To fill those wheelbarrows and shovel and mulch. A huge great pile of  mulch ready to spread about the garden, keep in the moisture and protect from the cold.

The heap couldn't be missed. It stood huge and brown right at the garden gate. Yes, dear readers you are correct, last week on a very wet and windy day Ms Tagalong had a quick preview of the garden and its progress in 2012.

But she failed to respond to the challenge. The few brave souls who did brave the heat this weekend must have made a dent. But Ms Mova assures me there is still much to do at next week's working bee.

This is probably not a good time to admit that Ms Tagalong will not be here that weekend either. In fact you may be forgiven in thinking that she really hasn't returned home. She has of course managed to find time to go to the wonderful Hewison Street community cafe.

Let's wish for some cooler temperatures and a more available Ms Tagalong who, it must be said, is actually planting seeds (chilli, red capsicum, tomato and coriander) on her mother's deck ready to bring back to the garden and continuing to visit other gardens when she can.

'Am I to be disappointed yet again?' said Ms Mova. Ms Tagalong truly hopes not!

A question for all of you. How many barrowloads will it take to move this lot of mulch?

It's great to have some feedback, so please leave me some comments.