Bellingen Rocks the Blitzes!

Written by adam

Wednesday, 09 September 2009 06:58

Joe Walker from Bellingen writes:

Nell Haydon hosted Bellingen’s (Mid North Coast NSW) permablitz #2 on Sunday 30^th August. Nell has been teaching a weekly vegetarian cooking class for facilitators and eco-team members of an OzGREEN Living Communities program. As a thank you 13 volunteers turned up to remove old fencing, relocate a trellis, renovate gardens, spread aged woodchip mulch on paths, and rake and gather mulch from slashed paddocks to mulch the citrus orchard.

Nell had prepared an amazing banquet of vegetarian dishes for lunch with most ingredients from Nell’s extensive gardens

The permablitz and the generosity of the volunteers created a wonderful medium for the sharing of knowledge, local experience and creating connection. Two participants discovered they were born in the same UK village. A Melbourne backpacker visiting the Northbank Community garden on Saturday and invited to Nell’s permablitz completed Permaculture training with designers who created the permablitz concept in Melbourne.

Nell said she had an amazing time and the thing she enjoyed most was meeting new people. Nell demostrated her method of trenching and burying weeds as a green manure and worm tucker. The old chaff cutter has been modified to deal with garden waste. The resulting mulch is thickly applied over newspaper sheet mulch and the garden bed usually rested for a month or so to let the worms do their magic.

A very special thank you to the volunteers and the Northbank Community garden.

Upcoming blitzes:

Bellingen permablitz #3 is a combined working bee/permablitz at Dawnsong, 1 Elliot Close, North Bellingen

Saturday 12th September at 9.30am.

We'll be renovating a strawberry garden bed, creating an edible garden and compost heap, mulching and creating some innovative solutions to flood damage from earlier in the year. If you're interested in learning about Bio-dynamic methods, please contact Therese at Dawnsong 6655 2304. We may be able to get a weekly BD/Steiner class going

Bellingen permablitz #4 is at Rachel, Chris & Daisy's place

Sunday 13th September 10am - 3pm

We'll be creating edible gardens, exploring the possibilities of vertical gardens, composting and mulching.

Please RSVP for directions and catering. Phone Rachel on 66552484.