Garden Challenge example - Quarantine Island Community Garden

Christmas dish from the Quarantine Island Community Garden

Quarantine Island gained a new raised bed and a hot compost pile in the last year.  The latter was essential in establishing the former! 

The hot compost was created during a DCC funded Composting Made Easy workshop on the island.  Michelle Ritchie from Organic By Design ran the workshop for 12 participants during a monthly Open Weekend.

The photos say it all really.  The workshop covered why we need compost - a useful way to deal with food scraps as well as providing essential nutrients to the garden and therefore food we eat.  The ingredients and layering required for good quality compost and different types of compost systems.

The finished product seemed a little dry and corse but it was an essential ingredient to our new raised bed.

 

Below is a blurry but cool wee video of the compost showing how hot it is on a frosty morning!  Look closely and you can see the steam!

 

Building the raised bed garden

 

 

Again the photos say it all. Start with a thick newspaper layer (under which you may want to sprinkle Gypsum if you have clay soil), add animal manure.

 Spread on a layer of pea straw.  You could also use hay so long as it doesn't contain seed.  You can often source 'stack bottom hay' from farmers for free.

Add a layer of seaweed, then this is where your compost comes in!  Layer your homemade compost over the seaweed.

 Then add another layer of pea straw or hay.

I finished with a weed free commercial certified organic compost for two reasons.  Our compost was too corse to grow seeds in and the birds loved the homemade compost but weren't as keen to dig up the commercial stuff when it was patted flat. 

Above you can see the last three layers - homemade compost, pea straw and commercial compost.

 

Below is the florishing new raised bed.  I don't have photos of them but we grew the biggest broccoli heads I have ever managed to grow.  I did feed them lots of liquid comfrey and seaweed compost too.

 

Keen to set an example for the Enviroschools Garden Challenge I decided to document what I grew, harvested and consumed from the garden for the festive season.

 The broad beans did really well thanks to some volunteers who planted them during an Open Weekend over the winter!

So we had a go at a Broad Bean Dip.  I'd consumed a delicious broad bean dip at my cousins place one Christmas and decided this would be very fitting for the dinner table.



Let's just say that the process of shelling, boiling and shelling again was a good lesson in patience, but the end product was worth it.
Delicious!  We also used garlic and mint from the garden but there were a few ingredients that we didn't grow ourselves.