Usually at ACC our Gardening Group comes along each Friday and tends the fruit trees in our little orchard, waters and cares for the community herb gardens, wrangles the leaves (oh the leaves), turns the community compost bins and pulls up the weeds. They keep everything looking so lovely.

Yes, we are missing them!

Everything seemed okay in winter … but then spring arrived. In the last couple of weeks our garden has gone from slightly raggedy to verging on a jungle!

Anyway, neighbours, you’ll be pleased to know that this week we started the process of getting it ship-shape again. We began by weeding along the fence, tidying up the hill and sweeping the concrete.

And we’ll keep going next week until it is all back in order.

Because actually (currently hidden in the there amongst the weeds) some pretty exciting growing has been going on. And we’d like to show off. Like the plum trees. They are full of fruit this year. It’s quite a thrill - the prospect of our first real harvest!

Fingers crossed.

We had quite a few of our Craftberry Jam kits find their way to homes yesterday. And we made some new jars as well, so next week our flavours will include:

• Origami Craftberry Jam

• Bottle top necklace Craftberry Jam

• Collage starter pack Craftberry Jam

• Spare key windchime Craftberry Jam

• Love heart bracelet Craftberry Jam

• Make a card or 2 for someone you love Craftberry Jam

Pop past on Thursday to collect yours from 10am -4pm. If you already collected a jar and completed your craft project, we’d love the jar back. Just pop it in our collection bin next to the Street Library. Or come past next Thursday and collect a new one while you are dropping it back.

And … we’d LOVE to see the creations. Post them on Instagram with the hashtag #craftberryjam.

Lots of sparkly fun in our ‘Make a card or 2 for someone you love’ Craftberry Jam kit

A jar of bright coloured pager squares accompanied by folding instructions in our ‘Origami’ Craftberry Jam kits.

Our ‘Collage starter pack ‘ Craftberry Jam kit includes some pages of old text, and interesting images of people and things … collage can provide hours of entertainment if you take some time to explore how you are going to combine the elements together ... and add in images, shapes and backgrounds from other sources. Need some inspiration? Check out the hashtag #collage or the page @thecollageclub both on Instagram. No need to stick things down straight away, moving things around and photographing them is part of the joy.

Have you noticed all the new street libraries that have popped up in the last few months?

In my walks I’ve spotted new ones on Perry Street, on Thompson Street and on Mitchell Street. Just to name a few.

And local Kathy wrote to us last week about the one she’s recently installed out the front of her house in Mercil Road.

She says it has been a joint effort of woodworking and mosaic skills that has kept her and her partner Allen entertained during lockdown.

Locals are invited to stop by and choose a book (there's a chair for leisurely browsing) or to drop off their no longer needed reading material.

And this book library has the added bonus of being near a community nature strip veggie patch. So you can collect some silverbeet for dinner at the same time.

Thanks for letting us know Kathy. Your street library Is a gorgeous addition to the neighbourhood.

Happy reading everyone. And don't forget to eat your greens! 😀

I did mention previously that I have been getting in to K-drama this year (yes the obsession is still going … I just finished The King). And noodles are part and parcel of these shows.

At our house 2 minute noodles/instant ramen are pretty popular … but oh the plastic! It was getting me down. And the flavourings … what are they exactly? So I started making my own. I don’t think I’ll ever go back.

Here’s my simple recipe hack.

• 1 noodle block (you can buy them in bulk packs at big supermarkets without any flavourings)

• 1 stock cube

• 1-2 cups boiling water

• 1 dash soy sauce

• 1 pinch Chinese 5 spice powder

Garnish:

• dried fried onion

• dried chilli in oil

Add all the things. Cook for 2 minutes on the stove or in the microwave.

Note garnishing is the important bit! I add dried fried onions and a little dried chilli in oil to mine, both of which are available in most supermarkets in the Asian section (even the IGA has these ingredients). It gives it a bit of slightly spicy French onion soup flavour. Yum.

And then some vegetables to add some nutritional value … like diced capsicum, beanshoots, broccoli, beans … whatever you have will probably work! Boiled eggs cut in half, tofu and chicken can also all be added too, to turn your snack into a meal.

The other night I made this for our family dinner (multiplying the quantities obviously) and I upgraded to proper stock and adding chicken and prawns and loads of Chinese broccoli.

If you don’t get round to making this yourself maybe we’ll have a Korean themed community lunch … we’ll make some kimchi and Korean ramyeon (ramen) … and we could have a K-pop soundtrack! We mightn’t go as far as drinking Soju shots … but Korean Fried Chicken … yum! I’ll ask Jill for some tips - she spent quite a few years living in South Korea, hopefully she has friends who would be willing to share recipes … something to look forward to hey?

Like many, our garden at home has been getting a bit of extra love and attention lately. With work and children etc. we’re generally running around like headless chooks, and so our garden gets neglected … it’s been pretty nice to have the time to plant some things and then tend them this year …

Hello snow peas.

And hello future apricots.

We’ve also currently got passionfruit, chilli, parsley, rhubarb, silverbeet, red currants and mulberries that are all looking promising.

What’s been happening in your garden?