Our volunteer handyman Nick is still hard at work creating amazing things on the allotment, along with a new young volunteer, and Nick’s unofficial apprentice, Jamie. His original 3 benches have now become 4 along with storage units, a work bench, potting table and new compost bays, all made from repurposed timbers, and he is currently working on transforming our existing brassica cage into a large (8m x 4m) polytunnel. This will be used for ‘ground growing’ our warmer climate produce such as tomatoes, chillies, peppers, cucumbers, melons and avocados to name but a few. A water catchment system will be installed on the new polytunnel and we are currently exploring different ways of setting up an irrigation system for the polytunnel to maximise water usage and minimise loss due to surface water evaporation.
The growing season is well underway and our ever expanding group of volunteers have been busy planting seeds, potting on, weeding the raised beds and starting this year’s new compost.
Last year’s Organic Horticulture course, run by Sow the City was a great success, with 12 volunteers attending and gaining a certificate.
Our new large pond in the nature bed area is proving a big hit with our amphibians and has seen frogspawn laid earlier this spring and we now have a pond teeming with tadpoles. Our local birds are enjoying the shallows and bathing and drinking in the water (and, no doubt enjoying some of the pond larvae as a diet supplement) and for the 3rd year in a row our bird boxes are occupied.
The new mini orchard is going from strength to strength with new soft fruit bushes, red currant, autumn raspberries, blueberries, gooseberries, strawberries and thornless blackberries all covered in new leaf and blossom and showing promise of a bumper harvest.
We continue with our partnership work in the community and have sessions planned with BCC (Broughton Community Centre), the Yemeni Community Centre and THOMAS Project.
We are making plans for our volunteer day out this year, celebrating all their hard work and dedication with a trip to the Southport Flower show in August, a chance for everyone to relax, enjoy each other’s company and gain inspiration for our garden and their own. We are also looking forward to a ‘midsummer’ barbeque on the plot in June.
Thank you again to Vegware for helping us grow a healthier, greener, and more connected community.
