Off to work we went
It's an exciting new year at the Leyton Boundary Community Garden. As we reopen the gates to start a new growing season, take a look at some of the projects we did to prepare the garden during winter.
Greenhouse love
One of the main things we wanted to achieve from our winter infrastructure work period was to repair and revive our little greenhouse at the community garden.
For too long it had sat a bit unloved by necessity; damaged by previous bad weather, housing plant pots and old rain water but nothing much else in the way of life. The problem is these kinds of repairs can sometimes be costly and time-consuming. As a community garden we must almost constantly adjust according to changing conditions.
But, by golly, the greenhouse’s time to shine had finally come in the form of our handy garden friends, Simon and Jon. The bones were cleaned up and panes were replaced. We even have a fully working door!
Needless to say that the greenhouse will once again have its time in the sun in 2025, allowing us to nurture more green shoots than ever before.
A clean slate
I don’t know about you, but a really good Spring Clean is like a healing balm for me (hi, I’m Jenny! I write these newsletters). Imagine how thrilling it was to get stuck into the area behind the Tea Shed to sort through all the once-maybe-useful bits and bobs, now past their usefulness. We kept what we could, and tossed the rest, leaving a bright, clean open area for… well, you’ll just have to wait and see!
There’s been a few ideas floating around on how we could utilise this cosy area. A drying area, perhaps? Better storage? An outside kitchen?
Who knows? We don’t, yet. But it’s delightful to be able to see it again, and I’m sure it’ll reignite inspiration in 2025.
Out with the old
Well, all that rubbish had to go somewhere, I suppose. We began a new pile, and bit by bit it grew and grew. And then it grew some more.
Happily, it was all cleared before we reopened on Saturday 1st March (more information about that in the next newsletter).
In with the old
As part of our biodiversity work, Jenny procured a large amount of old logs from a locally felled tree. Left to ripen, they were already teeming with their own little ecosystems! With some (very) heavy lifting help from Ysr and Hugh, we managed to get them to the community garden, ready for a new life as a wildlife habitat.
They currently reside in the wildflower meadow, adding some shelter and structure for the tiniest of living things. Later, they may be moved elsewhere to help create habitat walls. But for now, they look right at home surrounded by the Spring buds.
Compost baes
(Sorry not sorry, I love a good pun.)
As a community garden with a key focus on organic growing and aims of self-sustainability, we love, nay adore, our homemade compost. If you are not yet aware, we use a cold composting system with a typical 3-bay rotation (you can bring your compostable waste to us if you’d like!).
The compost area is such a central part of life at the garden. But the bays themselves needed a spruce up and some reinforcement. Jenny took it upon herself to have a go over a couple of sessions, making use of the remaining useable wood on-site, replacing parts, adding a couple of new pallet walls, and lining each bay with chicken wire to help prevent spillage. Old scaffold boards were attached at the front to keep it all where it ought to be.
The brown waste was chopped up with the help of a couple of volunteers, and set aside for easier use.
Job done!
What is this - a home for ants?
We love our bugs, we really do. Even the slimy ones. So we created not just a bug hotel, but a whole resort for them. A minicreatuce mansion, if you will.
The great thing about bug hotels is that you can make them out of more or less anything. We added sticks, a couple of tyres, pipes, broken terracotta pots, grasses, old teasel heads, bricks...
Behold, our ever-evolving masterpiece of engineering for invertebrates.
Curious structures
The wonderful folk at thinkFOUND create glorious items from reclaimed and recycled materials. They got in touch with us to see if we would like to rehome a wonderfully versatile wooden pavilion with roof sails after it was built for another local outdoor event, prolonging its life and continuing to be useful for the community. We said yes please!
Once the weather cleared up a bit towards the end of February, Jon and Devin rebuilt it in it’s new space, where it shall be used as a focal point for on-site events and sitting out enjoying the sunshine.
We love our new henge, and we’re sure you will too.