The Growing Garden
Rooted in Nature, Music and Walks Through Many Gardens
We had a great burst of activity in the garden this week, but, before I tell you about it please mark SUNDAY 26TH APRIL in your diaries for EARTH DAY at the Stratford Hotel and the Lighthouse and Gardens. A range of FREE eco activities, including Earth Day cards, the power of plants and garden …
And there are our potatoes sitting in their egg boxes in which they have been ‘chitted’ for the last few weeks in my kitchen. Chitting is pre-sprouting your tubers in the warm before planting them which, theoretically at least, can give them a head start. We were extremely lucky with the weather yesterday, getting the …
We were delighted to have two families join us yesterday for a tidy up, a bit of Christmas cheer and an update on our FUNDING DRIVE FOR THE URBAN FOREST TRIBE! You will remember that Paula and the Tribe got accepted into the AVIVA MATCHED FUND to raise money for their new Outdoor Learning and …
We are very excited as for the first time ever Tribe Roots for Resilience who we know as the Urban Forest Tribe – our partners in creating our Growing Garden – have been accepted into the Aviva Match Fund. This means that Aviva will ‘match’ every donation they receive up to £250. (Click here to …
We were back in the Growing Garden last Monday ready to finish all our clearing and planting – and harvest the remaining apples on our Bramley apple tree. Here is our chief apple picker hard at work. And here is chief apple picker’s mum Jacqueline… ….who not only put in a good shift on planting …
We have had a very busy couple of weeks in the growing garden. It started with our digging team preparing our new vegetable bed, edging it with old bricks and digging in lots of manure. However, first they had to dig out those triffid-like courgettes (or whatever they were) which were taking over the space. …
We are positively weighed down – if deliciously – by ripe tomatoes coming from our tomato plants – not to mention the cooking apples from the tree in the main garden. And now the beans are in full flow! Meanwhile the squash (or are they courgettes?) are obviously on something pretty powerful as they are …
Things had got a bit out of hand in the planters – as you may have noticed in our last post. In fact they had got out of hand in the new pergola planter and on the pathway down to the garden too, the recent bursts of rain having encouraged the grass and the bindweed …
How is that for a fine crop of beetroots and baby carrots? The last of them pulled this morning after we has tested them out last week. Also harvested this morning were radish leaves – but alas only tokens of radishes! This was our second radish sowing and I suspect we may have overwatered them …
Here is the Growing Garden on the morning of our big opening on June 22nd, positively glowing in the early morning sun. Sun which was to be very good to us all day, popping in and out but always accompanied by a pleasant cooling breeze so it was never too hot either for our flowers …
The last time you saw this planter, Sue was pricking out tiny chard seedlings on the right and setting radish, rocket and lettuce seeds. Now look at it! And this picture was taken several days ago. All of those little plants are now significantly bigger – so significantly much bigger that on Monday I am …
This was the view of the Growing Garden this afternoon – planters all filled with seeds or plugs (tomatoes, corn, beans, beetroot, carrots, parsnips and innumerable sorts of lettuces and chard) – seat base all ready to receive the seat, trellis ready for the mirror, the ground levelled with sand and soil all ready for …
We were delighted to have a visit ten days ago from Ecologist Michael all ready to help us plant out our first seeds in our new raised beds! The seeds had come from Garden Therapist Shey (see her at Keep Calm Garden ) – thank you Shey – and initially we used the beetroot and …
You will remember that we left the planters last week all ready to be preserved with some creosote (Stephen’s first job when they arrived). Then they would be ready for a good layer of rubble in the bottom of each. This very satisfactorily got rid of all the broken brick and stone lying around the …
First thing this Friday morning Steve and Stephen were on site coming to grips with the large pile of scaffolding boards that had been delivered earlier in the week. The idea was to make progress on our planters so that they could be positioned and filled first with rubble and then with soil. Once that …
Foreman Steve and worker Stephen arrived promptly on Friday morning and started clearing and sorting. As Steve said, he really couldn’t plan anything until he knew exactly what we had that we might be able to use and what he needed to get. So here they are clearing all the old broken bricks out of …
This is ‘Foreman’ Steve and Stephen, Foreman Steve and Urban Forest Tribe Paula’s son – making a very creditable fist of swinging that extremely heavy sledgehammer. Stephen is home schooled one day a week by his dad and for the next few weeks our ‘growing garden’ is going to be his classroom. Once that is …
A happy new year to all – and welcome to Phase 1 of the Growing Garden project…. (If you are new to the project, click back to our first post to see how we got here.) So – here we are, on a rather grey day just before Christmas – the full digging team! The …
