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Welcome to Sustainable Wollongong Issue 26
As the colder weather sets in we hope you are remaining warm and dry.
This edition focuses on projects and events for the winter months.
In this edition
- Grow Local
- Act now to beat wind damage to trees
- Keeping the compost cooking over winter
- Helping your chickens through winter
- Loving your food without the waste
- Seasonal foods to love this winter
Activities
- Botanic Garden Nursery Plant Clearance
- Loads of Lemons Workshop
- National Tree Day
Feel free to forward this newsletter on to interested friends and family.
If you would like to make any comments or suggestions please contact us at sustainability@wollongong.nsw.gov.au
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Grow Local .....
We have had a mixed bag of weather the past few weeks and hopefully your garden is still going strong. It seems like more and more people have been reconnecting with the skills to preserve their autumn bounty for the short, cold days of winter to come.
We’re hearing about lots of passata, sauerkraut, pickles, and fermented vegetables being put up all over town. Are you in on the fun? Keep an eye out on our workshop calendar to check out opportunities to learn the skills to pickle, ferment and preserve - or look around for training courses offered by local social enterprises and small businesses.
Things to do in your edible garden this winter….
Plant a pomegranate! Winter is the time to do it, whilst the roots are bare. Pick a sunny spot, and enjoy the low-fuss care this wonderful fruiting shrub requires. The dense spiky foliage provides habitat for small birds and beneficial insects, the flowers provide food for our pollinating insects, and the fruit is a miraculous addition to salads and a range of delicious dishes from the eastern Mediterranean and middle east. Plus, have you seen how much a single pomegranate costs? These things are easy to grow. Winner!
Plant Now: onions, radishes, rocket, peas, asparagus, lettuce, dill, parsley.
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Plant Clearance Sale this Saturday
25-50% off ALL plants during our Plant Clearance Sale this Saturday from 10am to 2pm.
We need to make room for the construction of the Nursery's new shade house so all plants must go!
You can choose from an excellent selection of native ground covers, grasses, trees and shrubs.
Check our website for the list of available plant species for sale.
Clearance Prices
All Forest Tube Stock: $1.40 to $2.10 each
All Jumbo Tube Stock: $1.90 to 2.85 each
All 140mm (6”) Pots: $3.65 to $5.50 each
All 200mm (8”) Pots: $6.25 to $9.40 each
All 250mm (10”) Pots: $9.25 to 13.90 each
All 300mm (12”) Pots: $17 to $25.50 each
To help you choose the right plants for your garden and ensure you get the best results,
talk to our friendly horticulturalists at the sale.
Don't miss this opportunity to secure a great deal on plants for your garden!
The Garden's Greenplan Nursery is located on Northfields Avenue in Keiraville. The car park entrances will be highlighted with bright flags.
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National Tree Day
It's time to bear your heart and soul.....
National Tree Day is on Sunday 30 July and Schools Tree Day is on Friday 28 July.
Council is once again supporting National Tree Day and coordinating a number of community planting sites.
By taking part in National Tree Day, you'll be contributing to Australia's largest community tree planting and nature-care event and joining thousands of individuals in making a difference, connecting people with nature, beautifying neighbourhoods and inspiring positive environmental change.
For further information and to find a site near you visit the National Tree Day Planet Ark Website.
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Act now to beat wind damage to trees
With the traditional 'windy season' around the corner, we are encouraging residents to inspect trees on their properties to reduce the risk of damage.
Wollongong is usually affected each August by a period of high winds which often result in a number of fallen trees and limbs, resulting in damage to private and public property.
To prepare for the upcoming season, we are urging residents to look at limbs and trees they feel might pose a risk to their property and lodge applications for pruning and removal where required.
Under Council's Tree Management Permit Policy it is illegal to cut down, remove, prune, lop or damage trees, including dead trees, without a permit issued by Council.
Council’s Tree Management Permit Policy outlines details of the permit process for obtaining approvals relating to trees. It also provides information on Council’s exempt species that do not require a permit, such as domestic fruit trees and noxious weeds.
Council’s Tree Management Permit Policy also includes the procedure for situations where a tree poses an immediate and obvious threat of injury to persons or damage to property. In such instances remedial action can be carried out to make safe a tree by an emergency service authority in response to an emergency. However the tree owner must obtain further approvals from Council for the removal or any additional pruning of the tree. In these instances the tree owner must be able to support the immediacy of the danger of the tree as witnessed by the emergency service authority and with photographic evidence.
Further information and details of the Tree Management permit process including exemptions and the dangerous tree procedure are available on to Council's website or by contacting Council's Customer Service on 4227 7111
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Keeping the Compost Cooking over winter
During the winter months many people find that their compost slows down and seems to take longer to break down. It doesn't have to be this way. It’s not the sun’s rays that make our compost get warm; it’s the bacteria inside the compost that heats it up. Once compost cools off, worm activity is slower and the whole process seems to stagnate.
But there are ways to get your compost rocking again. Grab a garden fork or turner and give that pile a good stirring up. Sure, this does create air pockets, but this helps the bacteria to take a deep breath. Next, ad some water. Fill a watering can with water and ad ½ a cup of brown sugar or molasses to the water; pour this over your compost. What is a party without some sugar! Bacteria and other compost creatures do like sugar, but not too much as it can make the pile go acid. Autumn leaves brightly coloured are also high in sugars and help to excite bacteria. Next if you can add some chook manure (not dynamic lifter) and/or some yarrow leaves the bacteria will really start to ramp things up. Within three days you should start noticing a rise in heat.
There is also a set size or volume of compostables that gets hotter. Anything less than 1 cubic metre will struggle to get really hot and maintain heat. Think of it as a big party. If you walk into a club where there are only two people dancing, you are less likely to join in. If however, you walk in and everyone is up dancing, you want to join in. Your compost is the same. Maybe you feel that you can’t possibly add enough organics to get one cubic metre or you may not have access to grass clippings and weed matter?
Don’t despair, just add bokashi. Bokashi is a Japanese fermenting agent. You can put this directly into your compost, but you do need to cover it over…a handful of soil will do. The heat from the fermentation is a party invitation to all compost creatures. You can even put Bokashi in your worm farm.
This way, you should have finished compost, ready to plant your spring crop in.
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Helping your Chickens through Winter
This article is not about knitting little stockings and beanies for your chickens. It is about practical things you can do to reduce the stress of cold winter temperatures.
Chickens, like us, become hungry when they are cold; their bodies burn through that food faster, using it to make energy to stay warm. Giving your chickens a nice feeding of cracked corn before bed gives them something to digest during the night, keeping them warmer. And they love it
It is really important to keep them warm at night. Chickens need a roost, a place to get them off the cold ground where they can fluff out their feathers and snuggle beside their other feathered friends. The roost needs to be at least 2/3rds the width of the length of their foot. They don’t want to sit on cold steel, a wooden roost is best. There needs to be enough space to fit all of the chickens on the one roost. Go outside with your torch and check if they are all sitting on it. If there is one sitting on the ground, she is really cold and can get sick.
There has been a lot of rain lately and chickens don’t like mud, so don’t have your chicken coop in a low lying area. If the land is poorly drained then you might have to construct a special winter run with sand or wood chips on the floor and a solid roof over this run area. If you’re worried about your girls not having enough space in the coop, you can build a kind of greenhouse style run, covering it in clear plastic. They will wander out into it and have a bit more space on nice days, and you can rest easy knowing they are getting some fresh air. Of course, they can go outside on cold winter days, but you’ll find that if you have a warm dry green house, they will usually prefer to hangout in there.
In winter, you will hear some people say their chickens aren’t laying now that it is colder, others boasting that theirs haven’t stopped. It’s not that some peoples’ chickens are better than others. It is all about the age of the chicken and the light conditions of winter. Egg production naturally slows down over the winter months because egg laying is stimulated by the amount of light and day length. Some people choose to add lights in their chook house to add an hour or two of light, this may give you more eggs this year, but may prematurely age your chicken, reducing its laying life. Regardless of the light factor, the older hens get, the less they lay.
Rats are a problem for chicken owners, especially over winter. It is really important to discourage rats as much as you can. Ensure there is no feed left lying around and that you store the food securely away from rats. Rats will eat chicken eggs if they are left in the nest overnight, so ensure the eggs are collected daily. Yes, chickens will eat mice and small rats, but not when it is dark. Chickens are not nocturnal, they are quite docile when it is dark and rats can even be so bold as to chew out a few tail feathers. So, if you don’t want bald hungry chickens, control the rats!
Finally, when it is cold, windy and rainy, the girls may choose to just hang out inside the pen. To prevent boredom, hang interesting items like cauliflower heads or comfrey from the roof of their pen. Make sure these things are just within reach. Similarly placing straw, weeds or grass clippings on the floor gives the girls something to scratch through.
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Loads of Lemons Workshop.
Lemon trees are a wonderful thing to have in your backyard and at this time of year we often find lemons are in abundance right across the Illawarra. Of course, there are several varieties of Lemons, so if your tree isn’t fruiting at the moment, don’t stress!
What we do know however, is that citrus trees, such as lemons, oranges, limes and mandarins, seem to bring communities together. Still, in our fast paced society, it is lovely to pass a bag of fruit over to a neighbour or take some into work colleges.
Many people have brought a property that came with a citrus tree and they don’t really know how to look after it. Or, you may simply be interested in planting a tree and want to learn as much as you can first. Most of us have seen trees with yellowing leaves or leaves that are crinkled up or have huge caterpillars on them.
In this workshop, we will discuss natural remedies to control pest and diseases that may be affecting your trees. We’ll make a compost tea that your citrus tree will love and we’ll share recipes that will use up some of that surplus fruit.
Date of the Workshop: Saturday 24th June 2017
Time: 10am-12noon
Cost $10.50pp
Bookings Essential: https://wbglemons240617.eventbrite.com.au
Enquiries: botanicgarden@wollongong.nsw.gov.au or call 4227 7667
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Seasonal foods to love this winter
Winter brings a range of colourful fruits and vegetables. Here is what is in season.
Fruits: apple, custard apple, grapefruit, kiwi fruit, lemon, lime, mandarin, orange, passionfruit, pear, quince and rhubarb.
Vegetables: avocado, beetroot, broccoli, Brussels sprout, cabbage, carrot, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, fennel, leek, olive, onion, parsnip, potato, pumpkin, silverbeet, spinach, swede, sweet potato and turnip.
Purchasing and storage tips:
Mandarin: Choose fruit with glossy skin, fine texture and that feel heavy for their size. A loose feel and puffy appearance is normal due to the easy-to-peel skin. Mandarins can be stored either at room temperature or in the fridge.
Rhubarb: Choose crisp and firm brightly coloured stalks. Rhubarb can be kept in the fridge, sealed in either a plastic bag or an airtight container.
Sweet potato: Choose firm sweet potatoes and store them in a cool, dark, well-ventilated place.
For more storage tips visit Love Food Hate Waste
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Loving your Food without the Waste
There is a lot you can do to help reduce food waste at home, and it really doesn't take much effort, just a little bit of thought.
- Buy less food. With a little bit of planning you can buy just what you need to get through the week.
- Plan. Each week before your grocery shop, open your pantry and fridge and look at what is already in there. Use these items up before they spoil, even if you don’t feel like eating them.
- Keep a whiteboard in your kitchen. Keep lists of what is in your pantry and fridge so you know not to buy more of what you already have. Otherwise you’ll end up with yet another box of taco shells you didn’t need taking up valuable space in your cupboard.
- Be creative. The kitchen is the perfect place to get those creative juices flowing. Throw together a beautiful meal out of what you already have. The tin of beans in the cupboard could be used to make hummus. A tired old capsicum could be roasted, cut it into strips and tossed through pasta.
- Read books such as OzHarvest’s cookbook. A beautiful compilation of recipes from some of Australia’s best chefs and cooks all developed around using up leftover food.
- Learn to be frugal and economise. Make your food purchases stretch as far as possible. Collect meat and vegetable scraps in a zip lock bag in the freezer and use them to make stock. For example if you peel a carrot the peelings go into the vegie stock bag. If you buy fresh herbs use what you need then chop up the rest and freeze them. Freeze BBQ chicken carcasses for making stock.
- It’s what’s on the inside that counts. A staggering 40% of produce ends up in the trash because it doesn’t look “right”. There is an unrealistic consumer expectation that food has to look perfect on the supermarket shelf. Crooked cucumbers, spotty apples and marked tomatoes are just some of the beautiful produce being thrown away. If a piece of fruit is marked, it really is irrelevant.
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