News from Harvest Corner Community Garden in Gray, NT
Story by Naomi Lacey, November 2016
The committee of Harvest Corner Community Garden in Gray, NT have teamed up with The Smith Family and Tropiculture Australia to provide workshops for Roseberry Middle School for the second year running. The workshops have once again been a great syuccess with the students really engaging and learning a lot from the experience.
Chris Nathanael has run Tropiculture for over 40 years, providing the Top End and beyond with fruit trees and some vegetables particularly suited to the tropical climate. We asked Chris to assist us with a grafting workshop as part of the 2 workshops on propagation we were providing – his knowledge in this regard is second to none.
The students learnt how to graft K2, or Bowen, mangoes onto appropriate rootstock and were all very eager to get in and give it a go themselves. They hope to be given a space in the school grounds to plant out a mango orchard once the grafts have taken. This will be a great addition to their already thriving vegetable gardens.
Seed saving, planting from seed and planting from cuttings made up the other workshop with students collecting their own materials from their gardens and bringing them back to the classroom to plant. It’s rather funny watching a classroom get covered in dirt but it’s too hot up here at this time of year to be outside in the early afternoon so an air conditioned planting session was had.
We hope to be able to provide further workshops in the future for the school and others and really look forward to the students coming to visit our garden before the close of the school year.