120 Whitfield students visit The Green Space

Whitfield State School year two students came to The Green Space in Term 2 as part of their excursion through the Botanic Gardens precinct. They had been learning about soils at school, so we talked about soil and how to enhance it for good plant growth. They checked out the compost system and the worm farm, although the worms got a bit shy with 120 kids looking at them, and disappeared into their castings after a while. The students also planted sunflower seeds in peat pots to take home, and made mandalas out of colourful leaves in the Jess Mitchell Park. It was an action packed morning and lots of fun.

The Green Space activities

Hugelkultur gardening method a success

A year ago we made a Hugelkultur garden bed and the vegies have been growing amazingly well ever since. The technique is a good way to save money, alleviating the need to buy lots of soil; saves watering because the rotting wood breaks down into humus and acts as a sponge; and everything breaks down slowly creating a compost rich soil.

To make it, you need a deep raised bed (you can also build a mound on top of the ground to create a swale as shown in diagram below). Fill the bed to halfway with logs (the more rotten the better), add leaves, small sticks, grass clippings and prunings chopped up small. Let this settle for a few weeks, adding more grass clippings and leaves as it shrinks. Give it some water to help it along. Top up with about 10cm of soil and plant straight into it.

Using this method, fungi slowly break down the logs, using less nitrogen compared with your compost bin which relies on bacteria. For this reason, don’t add food scraps or too many green prunings if you want to plant it out quickly. Lots of leaves, sticks and grass clippings will break down well.