Newsletter: winter 2025

Welcome! Amazingly, it’s been a whole year since our last newsletter (where did the time go?) so there’s a lot to cover.

First off, a reminder that it’s membership renewal time. Thanks to all of you who have already signed up again for 2025/26. If you don’t recall receiving your renewal invoice – or you have any questions or concerns – please get in touch. Again, we’ve managed to keep the annual fee at just $40 so we hope you can continue your support.

And if you’re not yet a member, now’s a great time to sign up. Find out how.

Membership gives you the opportunity to be as involved as you want in the garden, whether that’s regularly – or occasionally – getting your hands in the soil at a working bee, sharing in planting and harvesting, signing up for weekly maintenance tasks – or just taking pleasure in the garden and feeling good about supporting a community organisation.

As we start planning for the wonders of spring, we’d love to see you in the garden. Here’s to a productive year ahead!

Your 2025 committee
Clockwise from inset: Edwina Morris (Chair), Cathy Gray, Janine Baker (Treasurer), Helen Panckhurst (Secretary), Terry Chesher (who continues to provide her invaluable insights and experience as an ex-officio member), Jo Packer (Deputy Chair), Maree Sheehan.

IDEAS NEEDED

Can we make better use of the back corner of the garden, between the shed and the rear gate? More storage or work space? More native plants? A fruit forest in pots? A vertical garden? A nursery? Which plants would work best? The area is fairly small and irregularly shaped, with a drain in the corner and shading from both the sail and the shed, but the fence and sail structure also offer opportunities.

Jo Packer is leading a working group to explore the options, and we’d love your input. Find out more about the research already undertaken, and how to get involved.

AROUND THE GARDEN

Yes, it’s been (very) wet lately, but overall the year has been bountiful, thanks to the efforts of enthusiastic members across all areas of the garden. Remember, everyone is welcome to drop in during working bees – even if it’s just to say hello and find out what’s happening. Whatever level of involvement you can offer, it’s always appreciated.

Winter working bee times:
Wednesdays and Saturdays, 8.30–10.30am in the Rambling Potager garden
Sundays 3–5pm in the Kitchen and Bushfood gardens

Rambling potager garden

Trees, flowers, buzzing pollinators and a pleasing tumble of all sorts of herbs, seasonal vines, perennials and leafy greens, both familiar and exotic – that’s the potager vision.

Summer saw a magnificent stand of sunflowers in the front bed just outside the fence – radiating happiness. This is Turbo Teddy, a hybrid with the characteristic fluffy petals of the smaller Teddy Bear variety. It’s pollen-free, although the flowers still produce nectar and are attractive to nectar-collecting bees. The seeds were donated by a community member on a mission to spread their sunny beauty far and wide.

The trees in large pots and planters have mostly flourished this year, with new growth over the warmer months, and spring buds now appearing after the winter hiatus. We welcome all the lovely foliage and flowers, as well as the beneficial insects these trees attract. Terracotta ‘olla pots’ have proved to be a water-efficient way of keeping the soil moist, and the understorey is perfect for herbs and other companion plants.

Watercress, peppery and fresh, is the most abundant leafy green at the moment. But the many types of perennial spinach are always a feature. In the foreground are the purple/green leaves of Okinawa spinach (Gynura crepioides). The Malabar variety (Basella alba) is a climber whose purple berries can be used as a dye, while the curly green leaves of Brazilian (Alternanthera sissoo) can be enjoyed cooked or raw.

Along with the usual zucchinis and tomatoes, spring plans include trying a few more unusual perennial greens, such as Sea Kale, Sweet Cicely, and Good King Henry spinach – look them up!

Kitchen garden

It’s been another year of growing and learning in the kitchen garden – cultivating crops we love, as well as experimenting with less familiar plants and varieties.

Believe it or not, this is not a tree. The photo shows a zucchini vine (Lebanese variety), growing vertically between two sturdy stakes. It takes up less space this way, as well as allowing plenty of healthy airflow and easy access for harvesting. Other successful space-saving experiments this year included training our Tommy Toe tomatoes over the path, and recycling an old drying rack to support cucumbers.

Cristina has her hands full here – with a bounty of Jerusalem artichokes aka sunchokes (Helianthus tuberosus). Planted back in August 2024, they quietly multiplied over the next nine months until we dug them up. Nothing to do with the more familiar ‘globe’ artichokes, these starchy tubers are delicious. They can cause some flatulence due to a high inulin content, but their sweet nutty flavour is worth it.

The blueberries know spring is just around the corner – one of our two bushes (Burst variety) is already developing fruit, and this one (Kisses) won’t be far behind. We’re still harvesting root crops like turnips and radishes, and looking forward to sampling the still-developing beetroots (Golden and Chioggia) – perhaps even some brussels sprouts. But the focus is now on planning for spring.

Warm-season plans include new varieties of tomato, zucchini and cucumber – maybe even the extraordinary-looking African Horned cucumber aka Jelly Melon).

Bushfood garden

After three years, most of the plantings in the bushfood garden have been established, and the focus is shifting to consolidation, maintenance, and information sharing.

Being informed by First Nations knowledge has always been important to the bushfood team. Late last year, we invited Garigal landscaper Adam Byrne, from Bush to Bowl, for a visit. We were keen for his thoughts on both the range of plants we are growing and how best to care for them. Overall, Adam was impressed with the health of the garden, and we’ve already acted on some of the insights he gave us.

Exciting additions to the garden in May were a couple of healthy Five Corners plants (Styphelia viridis), purchased from Indigigrow in La Perouse. Indigigrow is on a mission to reintroduce these plants, part of the endangered ‘Eastern Suburbs Banksia Shrub’ community, and we’re happy to contribute. We should see “stunning tubular flowers” next winter followed by edible berries in spring. Find out more.

Another welcome addition is a new variety of native raspberry, Peter’s Thornless, a cultivar of Rubus rosifolius that arose from a chance wild selection, according to Indigigrow. As the name indicates, it has no thorns, and is the only known thornless variety of Australian native raspberry. It seems to have settled in well, and is already showing flowers and berries.

EVENTS

Events are opportunities for members to come together outside regular working bees, to share, learn – and just chat. Keep your eye out for email invitations, but in the meantime, read about past gatherings here, and ‘save the date’ for our next ‘Long Table’ event: Sunday 19 October 2025.

AUTUMN ‘LONG TABLE’ – 23 March 2025

On a warm Sunday afternoon in March, members gathered in the shade of the native mulberry to enjoy each other’s company and celebrate the abundant delights the garden had given us over the summer months.

Everyone was invited to contribute a dish, inspired by or using produce harvested from the garden.

It was such a success we decided to do it again in spring. Put 19 October in the diary now and stay tuned for more details.

TEA & TOOLS WORKSHOP – 24 May 2025

It was perfect weather for our ‘Tea & Tools’ event in May, hosted in partnership with Shokunin Store, an online boutique dedicated to Japanese artisan goods, including a range of quite special garden tools. Shokunin’s co-founder (and Kings Cross Community Garden member) Yuko Nakao provided an overview of what makes these tools different – which basically comes down to passion, time and a commitment to traditional craftsmanship.

Horticulturalist Yuta Asakura from the Greenfriends Gardens team then gave us a hands-on demonstration of how to look after these beautiful carbon steel tools, especially cutting tools like secateurs. We’ve since been able to apply much of this advice to the garden’s own tools, with a renewed commitment to prolonging their life by keeping them clean and oiled (camellia oil is best for this purpose).

CLOSE-UP – WHAT’S THAT PLANT?

Our regular Close-up series focuses on the wonderful things you find in the garden if you look closely enough.

Back in September last year, we hosted a visit from members of the North Ryde RSL Vegetable Growers Club, one of whom kindly gifted us a small tuber she said was a Jerusalem artichoke. Once it began to grow, it wasn’t what we expected, but we were happy to wait and see. In early autumn, as the leaves began to die back, we investigated what was going on underground, and all was revealed.

This was a yacon, or ‘Peruvian ground apple’ (Smallanthus sonchifolius) – and it’s a keeper! Here’s member Armando, with the harvest of tubers. Yacon is related to Jerusalem artichoke, and is similarly rich in inulin, but it doesn’t seem to cause the same ‘fartiness’. According to Gardening Australia, it has been grown in the Andes since the time of the Incas.

Juicy, crisp and sweet (the name means ‘water root’ in the Inca language), it’s a bit like a nashi pear, and works brilliantly in a Waldorf-type salad, for example.

Check out this comprehensive article from The Guardian, which includes growing advice as well as recipes.

We’ve already re-planted the rhizomes, so we can look forward to double the harvest next year!

STAY IN TOUCH

In between newsletters, follow us on Instagram. Members can also stay in touch via our various WhatsApp groups, intended for practical communications about things like rosters or working bees; they’re also great for sharing photos or useful resources you’ve come across. Let us know if you’re a member and would like to be added to these groups.

And don’t forget, there are working bees on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8.30am (potager garden), and Sundays from 3pm (kitchen and bushfood gardens).

Hope to see you in the garden!