Working Bee Helps Restore Murrumburrah-harden Rotary Community Garden

The Murrumburrah-Harden Rotary Community Garden was decimated during the recent hailstorm that caused mass destruction across the twin towns.

A working bee was held last Saturday, the 22nd of February, to clean up the damage and restore the garden to working order.

Murrumburrah-Harden Rotary Community Garden spokesperson Rita O’Connor said the work began before the day of the working bee.

“In the week prior to the cleanup various people had already gone in to pull out plants, pick any produce that hadn’t been destroyed and do general bits of tidy up.”

The damage to the garden was extensive, with a lot of plants suffering from the hail.

“The garden was decimated during the storm.”

“There were many tomatoes ready to pick so it was sad to see so much produce go to waste,” said Ms O’Connor.

“On our working bee, we had 3 utes with trailers to cart away the broken limbs from the pine and gum trees (which someone had already put into piles for us).”

“We raked barrow loads of pine nee

dles off the paths between the beds and pulled them out of all the beds as they were a couple of inches deep and will inhibit plant growth.”

Ms O’Connor thanked all the volunteers who attended to help clean up the garden and said the garden beds will be given a rest before being topped up with fresh soil and replanted.

“We will refill and refertilise all the beds in the next couple of weeks as the soil has become compacted. Then we will replant in the autumn,” said Ms O’Connor.

A huge variety of produce has been grown in the garden since it was established, recently including button squash, zucchini and herbs.