Welcome back, Sunshine!

Before

Hooray! The sun came back this evening. All is well down in the garden too. The seeds are starting to shoot (mainly the lettuce but also some peas!) and the netting seems to be child proof so far. 

Just a small group of volunteers today so it was a relaxed affair. Not that it is usually manic - how manic can you get in a garden?! Any way, I just went off on a tangent there, sorry. The grass had turned into a bit of a jungle since the clouds burst at the start of April so Sangeen gave it a mow. Meanwhile Ste and I shake'd and raked! We've sown some wild flowers ready to just do whatever they want to do. Here's some photos of the garden that is slowly starting to come into its own.

During

After! 

On the right is where the wild flowers will grow. If they want. They are wild after all.

If you want to get involved then please feel free to just come on down to Trinity House Community Resource Centre on Wednesday May 9th. If you want to contact me for further information then call 0161 248 2929 and ask for Becky. 

It's growing time

This week was very exciting (if a little too exciting for me)! We planted some flowers in the boarder that was dug out a few weeks ago and also managed to plant some potatoes ready for growing and eating! Over in the vegatable planters things were looking good too! some of the seeds have started to shoot up! However, as these planters are in a play ground we had some maintenance to do. The beds had been trampled on. Boooooo. You can't stop kids having fun though! So in an attempt to save the crop we DIY'd some netting. Who knows if it will still be there on the next volunteer day! Fingers crossed the drawing pins did the trick and held down the netting. 

Here's a peek at some of the latest developments!

Forget-me-not

Lettuce shoots! Woo!

The next volunteer day will be Wednesday 25th of April at 17:00. As always, if you want to get involved then just come down to Trinity House in Rusholme. See you there! 

Feel free to contact Becky on 0161 248 2929 if you have any further questions.

 

Why does it always rain on me?

It rained today. A lot. So the volunteer day was cancelled. The sun has actually come out since it was cancelled but never mind! The next volunteer day will be Monday April 16th at 17:00 if you want to get involved!




In the mean time here's some photos of the progress from last week! A new grass patch and a broken flower!

The first volunteer day! Yay!

The volunteers have just finished on their first day out in the garden and it was ace!


Throughout February the project recruited 6 amazing volunteers who are all super keen to get stuck in and get growing*. Today was hopefully the first of many days out in the garden!

1st of many Bees

Weed tackling!

We started out at Rusholme Jobcentre Plus, had a little ice breaker and discussed how confident we were feeling in moving into employment and then headed over to Trinity House Community Resource Centre in Rusholme. As soon as the tools were out and gloves were on there was no stopping us! In just a few hours the planting beds were free of weeds (hopefully for good - we'll see if those pesky weeks have returned the next time we are in the garden), the garden was cleared of litter and we even managed to plant some bulbs!! (Crocosmia were kindly donated by John who works for Stretford JCP). We discovered a tiny family of toys amongst the weeds (I took a photo but have no idea where it went), Anna saved a caterpillar (photo also missing, sorry!) and Ste found the first Bee of the summer. A tiny bright Robin also landed on the garden once we had cleared the weeds and rubbish! Hooray!

Clearing weeds and planning 

The Bee!

THE FIRST BULB OF THE GARDEN!

Making way for the first bulbs!

As we only had a few tools today - 3 trowels and one spade - we focused mainly on clearing spaces and thinking about what we want to see in the garden. At the end of the session the volunteers got together to discuss what skills we felt we got out of today and how that can be put on a CV or application form.


It's safe to say that everyone involved is super excited about the potential in the garden. We are hoping to start planting seeds and bulbs next week and hopefully we will start growing fruit and veg that we can take home and cook into something tasty!


A massive thank you to Anna, Mary, Ste, Geoffery, Billy and Sangeen - the lovely volunteers! Also a huge thank you to Chris and John who work for Jobcentre Plus and are both keen to keep up volunteering with the project. And of course, a big thank you to Matthew at Trinity House for giving us the opportunity and equipment to do the project.


The next volunteer day will be Wednesday March 21st at 5pm - if you want to get involved then please contact Becky on 0161 248 2929. If you want to donate any bulbs, seeds, planters, tools (we are one trowel down due to the unfortunate incident of Tool vs Soil - the soil won....booooo!), compost or fertiliser please please please do!


*Ha ha ha ha, it's a pun.