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.

 

Sew, what's knew?

Yep! Another terrible play on words for a title! But it's apt. Wednesday, under the glorious warmth of the March Sun, involved sewing seeds ready to start growing! How exciting! 


Time really flew on Wednesday, the sun was setting before we knew it but we managed to sew in some beans, parsnips, parsley, lettuce, chives and beetroot! We cannot wait until that all starts to grow! Here's some photos of the makeshift labels used to remind us of what we've planted. 

On Thursday myself and and one of the volunteers (a very brave Ste) visited the amazing Hulme Community Garden Centre to have a look around and get some ideas. We were shown around by the lovely Hélenè, who also donated some seeds and plants. We also bought some flowers, bulbs and potatoes ready to plant next week. Woo!


The next volunteer day will be Tuesday the 3rd of April, so if you want to get involved feel free to come on down or phone Becky on 0161 248 2929.

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.