Community gardens celebrate environment day

Two community gardens on the Peninsula celebrated World Environment Day on Wednesday, June 5, by opening their gates and inviting residents to come and see what they are all about.

"The Woy Woy Community Garden, which is just one year old, highlighted just how much an enthusiastic and dedicated group of gardeners can achieve in a year," said Gosford Council's environmental education officer Ms Anni Griffiths.

"Visitors on the day helped to plant up the newly constructed herb and sensory garden and also in digging up some sweet potatoes and Jerusalem artichokes.

"One sweet potato harvested was the size of a soccer ball," said Ms Griffiths.

The Peninsula Leisure Centre offered a workshop on building a wicking bed which is a simple and water efficient way of growing vegetables.

The kiosk also made a snack for the visitors from home grown produce.

"The Peninsula Leisure Centre garden evolved from an initiative taken by pool staff to deal with the organic waste from the kiosk and gardens with composting," said Ms Griffiths.

"From this, rich organic compost was produced and used to build up the naturally sandy soil of the Peninsula Leisure Centre to such a degree that it can now support a thriving organic garden.

"Enough produce is produced to supply the pool kiosk with fresh vegetables that can be used in their soups, slices and other fresh food based foods sold in the kiosk.

Email, 7 Jun 2013

Anni Griffiths, Gosford Council