Community Fund – Royal Edinburgh Community Gardens – June Update
My first month at RECG has flown by and I’m really enjoying getting to know everyone. June has been a very wet month for us here in the garden, one of the wettest Junes on record. However all the plants, vegetables and weeds are growing well!! Despite the weather, everybody has been involved in the day to day running of the garden. Weeding, planting, cutting grass and sowing have been our main tasks in the last couple of weeks. The one rabbit is still managing to get in and enjoy our efforts. However, John one of the members has found how it was getting in, so Rabbit 0 – Volunteers 1. Well done to all the volunteers and members for all their hard work despite the weather. No need to water but more need to weed!!
We have been busy planting out the beans, cabbage, and planting more lettuce and chard. We’re starting to see that the crops are responding well to the increased temperature and light levels. A huge thank you to all the Volunteers and members for their efforts even when the rain seems to keep falling. We’ve been working very hard to clean, tidy and organise the glasshouse so we can carry on planting both this year’s and next year’s crops. It looks very ordered and tidy, well done team…
In mid-June we started planning and preparing the area for our new garden shed. After many hours of leveling and measuring the new site we just need to lay the base and then it’s all systems go… ready for the delivery of the new metal shed. A big thank you to Allan, Brian, David and Bill for the hard work, it looks great.
We have also had several visits from local schools, Craiglockhart Primary and George Watsons Nursery. Despite the wet weather all the children have done a great job in helping weeding, planting out salad crops and weeding the endless rows of onions and potatoes. The children are looking forward to when the crops are ready.
We have had both RBS and Tesco helping out on two corporate challenges days. Both groups had a great day each working in the beautiful orchard reinstating and building new paths using log edging and woodchip. Well done and thankyou to all of you, the paths look great… A brilliant team effort!! Ross from Forest Schools had a lovely evening leading a storytelling session to a group of Beavers from the local area and everyone involved had a great time. Ross is planning more sessions in July; please see our website for details.
In the coming weeks we are going to be very busy with weeding, cutting grass, watering and planting. We will also be sowing new crops both inside and outdoors for the coming months. The broad beans and radish are ready and the rhubarb is being harvested, perfect for crumbles! We are also cutting tasty lettuces. This month we are running some workshops about growing vegetables in small spaces, understanding soil and seeds and looking at some of the biodiversity that is important to the garden and urban habitats. Please see this month’s calendar for more details. As always, this time of year there is lots to do and lots going on. We couldn’t do it all without all of you. Please do drop by and feel free to get stuck in, or even to just meet us and have a chat about the garden and what we have to offer.