Friday 3 November 2023

Bathurst Open Gardens

Last weekend saw Bathurst host their annual open gardens.  Each year Mick and I are joined by one of my friends for a delightful day out.  After two feral days weather wise, being cold and windy, Saturday proved to be a perfect spring day.  What a relief for the organisers.
Our first stop was “3 Veg Farm”, which was one I was looking forward to visiting.  A local lady has started a market garden using organic no dig methods on what was an industrial waste land.  She grows a variety of plants to sell at the farmers market and from her farm.  This garden was only started two and a half years ago.
One of her main methods of fertilising is by growing green manure crops, a blend of oats, rye, and legumes.
Once mature, she the cuts the crop and leaves it lying on the ground with the roots still in place to rot away.  Into this she then plants her veges.
The site is bounded by a creek and she is also encouraging local wildlife and has created a camping area.
All the buildings have been built from recycled materials.
Two gardens were standouts this year, both being opened for the firsts time.  The first one was “Seldon Park”.  As you walked in you were greeted by a cute coffee van and a renovated train carriage.  It turns out that the train is an Air BNB property.
The garden was based around a renovated older home with cute smaller cottage to the side.

Although not large it had so many pretty sections. Let’s take a little wander.

The garden is surrounded by lucerne paddocks, with some very old fruit trees and a small crop of garlic.

The next garden was also a stand out.  
You were greeted by this old truck, which was obviously a feature at a recent wedding.  
The owners’ COVID project was to build a wind shelter overlooking the view. It is made from pallets and then partly clad in rusty corrugated iron.  It would be a lovely place to sit of a late afternoon.

This was a more rambling country garden.  Come for a walk.
It was just beautiful.
I know it seems sacrilegious to me, but this display on the back verandah was so pretty.
At the other end of the verandah was their small gardening tools bench.  Even it was rather attractive.

There were some other lovely gardens to see as well.  Most we have actually visited in previous years.  Here is a random sample.
I hope you enjoyed visiting the gardens as much as we did.

3 comments:

Susan Smith said...

Absolutely enchanted.............wish we'd been there too. I was a bit gobsmacked by the amount of work that has gone into some of them and thanks for taking us along. Take care & hugs.

Jo said...

They are lovely gardens. There is a lot of work in them though.

cityquilter grace said...

a lovely sojourn....now that we have had our freeze, won't see anything like this for a while....a delightful trip!