Thursday 13 May 2010

Plotting the Revolution

Plotting the revolution!
As part of the sustainability drive The Castle has undertaken, a section of the garden has been given over to 15 community mini plots.
The plots, measuring roughly 1 x 3 meters are to be used by the Castle community to learn how to organically grow their own food. Our community so far comprises of people living near The Castle (our neighbours Bea and Ethel), our staff (Sophie and Ray); and of course our customers (those who signed up to volunteer in the garden). Everyone who took a plot has been asked to take a ‘hands on’ approach and get stuck in from the beginning. This involved lots of digging and weeding and also a lot of mattock work (Just ask Barry). The idea is for people that don’t have a space available to them to grow elsewhere, can use their plots here with help and advice on hand from Ida doing the occasional growing workshop and of course each other!
Almost everyone has ‘moved in’ to their plot and begun working out how to stop the pesky snails and slugs from chomping at their little seedlings.
We still have a way to go until we complete the area, we need a water source, a composting bay and need to decide what we will do with the concrete area in the middle and a fence needs to go up. We also need to decide what communal plants we would like to grow as well.
We have three plots going to community projects, so far, Paola from Sustain is having one, Transition town the second and the third is possibly going to be a herb bed.
If you have any ideas for our third bed or would like to get involved helping to make the compost bay etc please email kerry@castle-climbing.co.uk