Local Open Gardens April 2-3

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This weekend of Open Gardens is going to be a real treat with heaps on offer at both Wodonga West Primary School’s Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden, and the private garden of Jacky Cronin – the school’s kitchen specialist.

Together these two gardens illustrate how sustainability can work at both a community and an individual level - and be fun for all ages.

As well as the two fantastic gardens, there will also be lots of supporting activities all weekend.

Wodonga West Primary School garden
A Stephanie Alexander Kitchen Garden Foundation school since 2009, the kitchen gardens now feed 300 students fortnightly and incorporate garden beds, an orchard, outdoor learning area, water tanks and composting facilities. A community wood-fired pizza oven and parterre garden allow wider community involvement.  

  • Scarecrow competition, entries by the students
  • Photo board display of students describing their favourite things in the garden
  • Garden-inspired art by the students
  • No-dig garden demonstrations
  • Check out the school’s kitchen
  • Garden produce stall with vegies/plants grown by the students, plus preserves and dried herbs made in the kitchen
  • Preserve sampling
  • Raffle of a picnic basket filled with garden produce and preserves

Jacky’s garden
A happy integration of flourishing vegetables in decorative flower beds, ensuring something to see all year round in an attractive garden catering for the whole family. Herbs and dedicated vegetable areas including heirloom varieties. Salvia collection. Chooks and water tank.  

  • Fruit fly information, organic prevention demonstrations and advice
  • Seed cleaning demonstrations and seed saving information by Seed Savers Albury Wodonga
  • Seeds and plants for sale
  • Info on growing potatoes in no-dig beds
  • History of the garden
  • Inspiration from Jacky about the seasonal changes in her ‘a year in my garden’ notes

There will be information sheets available for each garden and you can talk to those involved. Students will help visitors tour the school garden and be available to answer questions.

When:       Sat 2nd and Sun 3rd of April, 10am to 4:30pm each day
Where:      Lawrence St, Wodonga and Bownds St, Lavington (directional signs will be out nearby)
Cost:         $8 for entry to both gardens, under 18s free – proceeds support local community groups

Autumn solar cooking

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I admit I hadn't been to the Farmer's Market for a while, but when Saturday dawned in glorious sunshine, it was time to remedy that. As well as enjoying the obligatory market breakfast roll and cuppa, and chatting to the various people you run into there, we picked up some great veg from the lovely folks of Willowbank farm in South Albury. 

Once home, I put the solar cooker and baking dish out to 'pre-heat' and grabbed some supplementary veg from our garden.

The cooker was a toasty 110 degrees celcius inside in less than an hour. By then I had chopped up Willowbank carrots (which were enormous, to say the least) and butternut pumpkin, along with our own potatoes, garlic and beetroot. I added a bit of olive oil and a few herbs and tossed the lot together.

Into the oven went the pot of veg. I adjusted it a couple of times to maximise sun exposure and three hours later we had wonderful solar roasted veg!

Yup, it's that simple. For the record, the ambient temperature was around 25 degrees during cooking. More importantly, it was a cloudless blue sky and the cooker tracked the sun as it moved across the sky. This is perfect solar-cooking weather.

Inside the cooker, the temperature averaged between 105 and 110 degrees during cooking. And if the truth be known, the veg were probably ready sooner than the three hours they had in there. Because food doesn't burn in the solar cooker, you can afford to forget about it to some degree. So I got a bit carried away with the gardening but it didn't matter.

The cooker is made from two cardboard boxes (one inside the other) with scrunched up newspaper insulation, aluminium foil, an oven bag 'window' and wire supports the top reflector. I was going to link to a previous post with more detail, but have just realised it was in a permi8 update pre-blog, so perhaps more on that another time!

Solar cooker cooking; shed construction in the background