We're going on a worm hunt..........

We had a visit from some kids from the 174 Trust nursery . The kids helped Lynda and Justin make a scarecrow for the garden ( a bit late for some of the wheat), they also planted some strawberries and sowed some carrots. The kids also enjoyed digging in some empty beds and discovering the joys of worm hunting ( no worms were harmed in this activity). They also had a treasure hunt and enjoyed making some daisy chains.

This was a great day for the kids and a great opportunity for us to reach a bunch of new people in our community and let them know about the joys of gardening and being outdoors.

Who says Sundays are for lie-ins ?

Here are some photos from our first proper Sunday session with a bunch of brand new gardeners. Here you can see us getting ready to sow some spring wheat, we are hoping to follow the bread making process from seed to sandwich.

We have marked out and sown 6 sq metres of wheat from which we hope to harvest enough grain to produce 6 loaves of bread, I will blog further on this process as the season progresses.

You can also see Marnie and Claire sowing some seeds in the polytunnel and of course we had some tea and Lee had baked some lovely cake which I only got a small slice of, but I will let them off with this because they are new.

New Beginnings

Here are a couple of shots from our first official session of 2011. Even though some of us have been getting together to do some work at the site in preparation, the first sessions started last weekend.

We have a Friday group this year made up mainly of people who were involved last year plus 4 or 5 new participants, we also have a Sunday group made up of people who are completely new to the project. We all got together to meet each other for the first time or to reacquaint ourselves and to go over some details of what the garden is all about. We also managed to squeeze in some gardening and of course some tea and biscuits.

The photo at the top will give you an idea of the space we have to work with. We should have around 30 people of all ages and abilities sharing this space, growing veggies and flowers sharing the workload and having a bit of fun at the same time.

SPUDS

We have just planted our first earlies called 'Colleen', and in the picture here you see one of our new crop of gardeners, Andrew. Andrew and Colleen seem very happy together.

The rest of the new gardeners start this weekend, 3rd April and the garden will be buzzing with activity for another growing season.

I hope to be blogging once a week once we get started and I will try and document what we get up to ( including growing our own wheat and using it to bake bread).

All the best for now and happy growing.

Signs of life

Hi everyone,

As this is the first post of 2011 can I wish everyone a happy new year. Even though its too early to start any proper gardening as you can see there are things happening, bulbs are starting to throw up shoots, buds are forming on branches and survivors of the snow are still snuggled up under cloches, and I even managed to get a brew on when I visited the other day. I have got an old Aladdin paraffin heater so we can warm our hands when we get back to work which will be soon.

The planning has started for the year ahead and the hopes are high for another productive year in community gardening. Just to summarise the activities since the last post, we harvested our crops, we made preparations for the winter and most importantly we all made it clear that we were at the beginning of something rather than the end.

I hope to see you all at the garden soon,

Justin