Here we are at Midsummer, still dealing with Covid 19 restrictions, but in spite of these, our new recycled plastic raised beds are heading towards completion.
What an amazing community effort! Even without the communal spirit of our Community Days, this is happening, and happening on schedule. The weather was with us. That dry spell in late spring made Warren’s work of levelling the old beds much easier (still a long days work), and the rain we had after helped to compact the flattened earth prior to setting up the new beds. The dry weather now is making it easier to assemble and fill them.
I was a bit concerned how it would be possible to get the beds up in an orderly way, with people doing them one at a time, but Leon and Mo’s marking up of the area has solved that problem . The new raised beds are looking very smart. Some are planted up already.
At one time replacing all the rotting original raised beds looked almost impossible. Meg’s extraordinary magic in securing grants has enabled us to purchase something we thought was outside our financial remit. Her unremitting passion has seen this project through.
With the money raised, we have been able to buy over 20 long lasting, no maintenance, recycled plastic raised beds. British Recycled Plastic have been very supportive in helping us buy as many beds as possible with our money and with the logistics of delivering and setting up.
We have been able to recycle a lot of the old, rotting, wood by using Martyna’s suggestion, taken from the hügelkultur method of gardening. This method requires a starter layer of old wood. This has lots of long term benefits. We have also asked people to use cardboard instead of weedstop as the base. We made a conscious decision here, to reduce plastic on site and avoid creating the false sense of security that weedstop actually stops weeds.
And, with the help of our new Redacre Members Facebook group, we have been able to let you know what needs doing when. Without your responses to our calls to action we would not be at this point . I am sure the new raised bed owners have a special thank you to all of you who humped wood, removed metal, saved plants, to get the site ready to flatten.
The raised beds allow people who would not otherwise be able to garden to be able to create their own little bit of Redacre. So a special thank you to those more able, who volunteered to put beds up for these people.
You will notice that there is still quite a large area without the new raised beds. The whole of this area has higher levels of lead than are deemed safe for vegetable growing . We are dividing this area into mini plots here for people to create their own raised beds. All plots are allocated but the good news is that our waiting list for growing spaces is now manageable.
A big welcome to all our new members who now have plots.
Happy growing and I look forward to seeing you on site.
Helen
