Green shoots!

This probably isn't too exciting for all you hardened gardeners, but here are some signs of life in

the community garden!
If you look very closely the onions are shooting up.

The broad beans are looking very healthy,
we've also got the early potatoes showing themselves and the seeded lettuce sprouting too!

This is the start of the herb spiral, we're aiming to do more this Sunday 12-2pm, Hope to see you there!

Mosaic marvel!

The mosaic gang put together a lovely picture made up of broken tiles ,beads and teapot scraps!.
The rest of us barrowed more top soil for the herb spiral (which we're going to assemble once the soil has settled down) and the furthest central bed for which we intend to make a mini poly tunnel for salad crops. The broad beans are coming on nicely. We planted the selection of brassica that Maggie brought along last week in the other small square bed and erected a bunny proof fence around it.We planted 6 seed potatoes that someone had kindly donated and then gave everything a good watering.
It was very warm and an ideal day for picnics and play!

Thanks to everyone who helped out today, hope you enjoyed yourselves!

Magic Water Butt!

Arrived this afternoon to a marvellous sight the huge water butt that we temporarily installed at the
end of the guttering last Sunday was brim full of rainwater..it's a miracle! Had I imagined that it would fill so quickly  I probably wouldn't have wheel barrowed 25 litres of H2O from my house quarter of a mile away.
Anyway Eddie watered some of the crops while I dug some soil to pin the netting over the strawberries, Maggie fetched some discarded bricks from GBM to make a start on the herb spiral. It was a good day for scavenging as Maggie managed to get some old plant pots and sheet plastic to make mini poly tunnel over the cauliflower plants. I found some green plastic tiling on the soil heap that would make excellent pathways for when the grass turns muddy. Sorry no pictures to share this time, forgot the camera!
See you Sunday

Building a base for our butt

We had a very productive day today!

• Installed water butt (work in progress) :Eddy and James
• Planted Sarpo and Avona potatoes      :Noel and Janet
• Planted Lettuce, Onions and Chives     :Jennifer and Jen
• Made a groovy "dig as long as you like bed" for the little ones : Claire, Jacob and Arianne
• Kept the beds watered : Jude and Jude's sister
• Kept the troops watered, encouraged and found an excellent bird table!: Maggie 

Janet enjoying a cuppa after spud planting!

You wouldn't think it would take 2 hours to balance a butt on a plank , would you? (It would have taken another hour without Eddie!) Thanks to Claire for the searing logic that enabled the butt to be fitted at the lowest end of the gutter.

Jude calculating how far one tea bag will go round!

Thanks to Nick and Sarah for donations of plants, much appreciated!
On Wednesday we still need to rabbit proof small bed, start ideas for herb spiral/centrepiece, water beds
try to locate water standpipe. See you then!

Wednesday update

This afternoon had a quick chat with Mr Scott, one of the owners of the bungalow on Crowtree Lane that we've been helping ourselves to water to from the butt in their garden...he was really helpful and gave me some unwanted tools including an excellent square sieve thingy which we can use to sieve things with! any suggestions?
They kindly gave me another water butt that I've placed at the end of the small run of guttering near the gardens, it will need a bit more work on Sunday to make it secure. I also claimed the bag of freshly mown grass cuttings that they had produced and spread a thin layer on the beds. They said the bungalow is up for sale soon but that they would sort out any other gardening type stuff for us if they find as they empty the garage and shed.
Broad beans are appearing! so gave them some more water as reward for their efforts. Thanks to Ros for turning up and helping to finish off while I went to another meeting.
See you Sunday

Sunday sun!

We collected more topsoil to fill up the extra beds, then found various containers to bring the water from the butt to wet the already planted crops.

 Then we had a cup of tea!

We planted the shallots, made some signs for the crops already planted and surrounded raised beds with chicken wire in an attempt to keep our bunny friends at bay! Thanks to everyone for helping today and nice to meet Ros for the first time, don't forget we'll be there on Wednesday 4-6pm.

Onions in!

We planted out the onions last night









Nick lifting turf from one new bed and placing it on a cardboard base, which will rot down to form another one. Biff constructing 3 new raised surrounds. These are extra beds to the original plan and will need barrow filling with the top soil nearby before we decide what to plant in them.

First attempt at rabbit proofing one of the smaller beds.

We also spread out a good quantity of high quality organic pony poo! See you Sunday for some more planting out and thoughts on centrepiece herb spiral thingy

What to do next

So we have early potatoes planted, broad beans sown, onion sets about to go in

and there are several sorts of lettuce growing in modules which can be planted out when they are big enough.

We have decided it is a little late to get a decent crop of Garlic so shall plant that in the Autumn.
Soon sweetcorn, runner beans and squash can be sown inside ready to be planted out after the frosts.
So next jobs are to plant onion sets and sow a couple of lines of leek seeds to be transplanted in the summer (once the early potatoes have been harvested). These could be sown at the ends of the onion bed.
Another thing we need to do is make contact with someone who can provide some good organic matter we can use to feed our soil. Rotted horse manure would be good.

Seeing as though we have been so productive we may as well plant up the extra beds we have dug. They are quite course so will be good for potatoes or for planting larger plants into. How about some main crop Sarpo Axona blight resistant potatoes in one, and fill the rest with a good range of pumpkins and Squash?