Preston Beach Community Garden set to host more workshops for residents thanks to State Government grant

The hidden green gem of a coastal community is getting a welcome bonus, with new funding enabling residents to take part in gardening workshops later this year.

Preston Beach Community Garden has received $4250 from the State Government’s Community Garden Grants program to deliver several new events for Shire of Waroona residents.

It has previously hosted a successful beekeeping workshop and president John McSwain hopes the grant will enable the garden to branch out into new areas of gardening.

He is excited at the potential of running new courses exploring bush tucker, soil improvement and pest identification, which will be open to anyone from in the shire who is interested in taking part.

Community garden member Rick Madin said the garden could accommodate 40 to 50 people for a lesson.

“If we had that many people come down for a soils course, that would be great,” he said.

“My wife wouldn’t be happy if she had to do the morning tea though.”

Mr McSwain said he would love to see that many people attending a workshop as it may encourage residents to join the community garden.

“We are always open to new members,” he said.

“We’re not just trying to educate, but we want to encourage people to come down and become members and get involved.”

As winter is soon to be setting in, the garden is unlikely to host any workshops until the seasons shift once more.

“We’re probably looking at hosting workshops at the end of the year or early next year,” Mr Madin said.

Mr McSwain said the committee would meet to discuss potential ideas for workshops, though he is hoping they will be able to get someone with a big personality to come down to host.

Despite the hiatus in workshops, Mr McSwain said the garden would still be open to all members of the community and the group would continue hosting monthly markets to sell produce grown at the garden each week.

“Even if it is only the committee sitting down and having a coffee with a couple of people wandering, that’s still good because we’re still together,” Mr Madin said.

He said members of the garden were proud of what they were growing and freshly grown cos lettuce and silverbeet from the garden would soon be on sale.