Blue Haven gardeners plotting

KATINA CURTIS

The gardening residents of Blue Haven are sprucing up their vegetable plots and other beds in preparation for the first annual garden competition.

One of those is Jack Gudgeon, who is entering his two vegetable plots as well as the rose garden he tends.

This year is the first time the Kiama Garden Club has held a single annual garden competition encompassing all seven categories.

Organiser Robert Curll said entry is open to anyone who lives in the Kiama Municipality with a garden, no matter how large or small.

Mr Gudgeon has lived at Blue Haven for six and a half years and has always had a garden plot there.

He regularly grows a wide range of vegetables, including spring onions, shallots, beetroots, rhubarb, beans, carrots and cucumbers, but his favourite is tomatoes.

“Off the one vine, a good tomato bush grown properly, you should get a bushel of tomatoes,” he said.

“For not much work you get a good return.”

This summer he has been collecting a bucket of tomatoes a day and those he and his wife can’t eat or turn into chutney or tomato sauce, they give away.

His secret is “plenty of water and plenty of manure” and protection from the satin bowerbirds that especially like to eat seedlings.

“We are fortunate here I think because we can water whenever we like because all our vegies and gardens down here are on tanks,” he said.

Entries for the competition close on March 3 and judging will take place soon afterwards, with the winners announced at the end of the month.

Mr Curll is keeping the identity of the judge under wraps until the winners are announced. Entry forms for the competition are available by phoning Robert Curll on 4236 0158 or by visiting the Kiama Independent office at 16-20 Manning Street, Kiama.