Adam has drawn up an impressive seed list to purchase from The Real Seed Company and we have ordered our oak planks from Soffe’s our local wood yard, to create flat terraces down the length of the North bed.
23rd January
A visit from our generous sponsors was an opportunity to meet Adam & admire all the Winter salad growing in the hot bed.
Snowdrops are peeping through the grass! The garden is transforming in front of our eyes. Adam has levelled the West bed and built up the soil depth for planting. The visiting children have been enjoying our gorgeous Cavalo nero for dinner.
The day dawns icy & cold. The volunteers are clearing out the weeds from the fruit cage & mulching the currant bushes. Hugh & Adam work together to plan the 2 remaining raised beds to be build out of local wood from Soffe's. The raised beds will be a great way to get the children involved with growing vegetables without trampling on the soil.
The year 4s from Morelands School have donned their wellies to help us construct a ginormous compost heap to feed the soil for the Big Grow project. We try to manage the garden organically without any herbicides or pesticides. We use nitrogen fixers to replace fertilizers. The children and teachers feed in their ideas to make the garden more child - friendly. The schools would like us to run some twilight courses on ‘How to start your School vegetable garden’
Meeting with Hampshire County Council staff to outline the plans for the Big Grow and adapt our ideas to best deliver the Councils aims & objectives
Even though it’s raining David has been out in the garden picking a wide diversity of salad greens for the children to make up their delicious wraps throughout the week. The cavolo nero is for tonight’s dinner, served with Hunt’s homemade sausages and mashed potato and carrots.
A successful task with our large group of trusty New Forest Conservation Volunteers. We coppiced willow & hazel to help build the infrastructure of the Big Grow Garden. Their help and advice with the project is key to its success
A chance for New Forest Transition to visit the site and comment on our 3-year project. They have requested that we run a day’s course in May 18 for the New Forest Community on permaculture and a day on fruit pruning
We had a short introduction to the principles of permaculture and wandered the site to admire the winter greens growing in the greenhouse & polytunnel.
The official start to the Big Grow as Adam the gardener starts at Minstead Study Centre.
He has meticulously measured out all our intended new raised beds and it out there getting to know our soil!
An early meeting with the Hampshire Waste Management Team to deliver an inset session on how to reduce green waste by composting & to integrate their ideas into the scheme. Their advice is to run 2 community events based around composting for local folk to attend.