Singing can be used to relax, inspire, comfort and show love were the encouraging words in the schedule for this week’s session.

Singing teacher Cecilia led us through a few breathing and relaxation exercises first, some of which were very funny – blowing raspberries in a room full of other adults is more entertaining than you might think!

After that we sang some nursery rhymes, an indigenous ballad, spiritual songs and Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” (you probably know the version recorded by James Taylor). A very enjoyable way to spend the morning.

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It was so exciting to see so many women at todays group, and lots of lovely new babies to cluck over, too! Welcome to all our new members.

After introductions by poet and member Melinda Smith, and a demonstration of the types of books it would be possible to create from book artist Caren Florance, we kicked off with Melinda encouraging us to do a guided writing exercise based on remembering a sensory experience, and then just getting some words onto a page.

After the exercise members shared how useful they found the idea of doing writing rather than sitting down “to write something”.

Melinda outlined that the range of lengths for our individual books will be a minimum of 8 to a maximum of 32 A5 sized (half A4) pages, comprised of text and illustration as decided by each woman. If wanted, we can contribute pages to a group book, and the group is happy to post members work online if they’d like it to be available to a broader audience.

Melinda is very happy to provide guidance about poetry writing, and has resources available for people interested in writing for children, short story writing, and memoir/autobiographical writing. She also has some resources about writing that can be borrowed (thanks, Melinda!)

We’ve all got a couple of weeks before the next BYP session to think about what we might need to say …

Categories: Backyard Project 2010, Session Reports
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It was great to see lots of new faces, and lots of little babies at today’s first session for 2010. We were fortunate to have a salsa dancing lesson from Sharon of Danzon: Social Dancing Australia.

Along with the more straightforward social and ballroom dancing, Sharon teaches Zumba classes, which are described as a “Latin Dance Fun Workout” – well, it was all of those things and there were a lot more funky moves than you might expect from a room full of Canberra mums!

Come and join us next week for the first session in our 2010 Backyard Project, creative writing with Melinda Smith.

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Today we had a fantastic session with Keith Colls, President of the Canberra Organic Growers’ Society. They have a great new website with heaps of helpful local information.

COGS has been running for 30+ years, and runs meetings, workshops, courses, a magazine and 11 community garden plots around Canberra. The organisation focuses on food growing using organic methods.

Keith talked about the organic approach which doesn’t just mean an absence of chemicals, but really revolves around considering the garden as a biological whole, and feeding and nurturing the soil.

He recommended some good books for local gardeners:

• Canberra Gardener

• Kevin Handreck’s Gardening Down-Under
  

• What Garden Pest or Disease is that?

- all available at local bookshops.

Starting your own garden

Kevin recommends digging a few holes around the garden and have a look at the composition and layers of the earth. Check TEXTURE and STRUCTURE. Adding organic material (anything that used to be alive) will improve the soil.

Then make some compost, most simply by throwing together a big pile. All compost piles will eventually break down into lovely compost, but it might take a long time if you use a very low-key approach. To speed things up, you can make a pile with a layer of heavy branches, etc at the bottom to let it air, then alternating layers of green material (kitchen clippings, etc) to leaves/straw. There should be about 3 or 4 times as much bulky material as green material, and you can throw some chook or horse poo or old compost in between the layers to speed things up.

Water

Kevin brought along some equipment you can use to make a simple dripper system. He suggests going to an irrigation place rather than a hardware store as it might be a bit cheaper. (Member Kirsten has just set up her garden and found Reece Plumbing in Mitchell really helpful).

Kevin warned that it’s not wise to use greywater directly on plants without being very careful about any detergents in the water, as excessive salt or trace elements can cause terrible soil problems. He recommended checking the Lanfax Labs site (who test for Choice magazine),
although he cautioned that he was more careful of trace element boron in detergent than they recommended. His choice was on the basis of information in the Handreck book noted above – and he noted that it’s one of the frustrations of a beginning gardener that books have so much contradictory information!

A final tip was that the regular COGS meetings, and CIT Horticulture students both offer a pest/problem identification service. CIT won’t give you an organic solution, but you can’t do anything without knowing what the problem is.

There will be one in Dickson at the end of this month – check the “Upcoming Events” on the COGS site for details.

Keith’s attitude was lovely – often things will just work, and if they don’t try it a different way next time. And don’t be too tidy!

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Thanks to Nancy for compiling the list.

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