On a lovely, sunny but very cold January morning, we got the Chorlton Good Neighbours gardening project under way. The idea is to reclaim a piece of land next to our offices and make it into a garden, sitting place and vegetable growing area. It will be great for all our users and volunteers, but it is especially targeted at getting more older men involved in the project.
We have done some initial planning, but felt it was time to get out there and actually start clearing the ground. The video and photos are a record of our first go at clearing the plot
There were two views on the brambles - one was to blitz them and get rid of them altogether. The other was to tidy them up and keep a patch of the brambles in a shady part of the garden to encourage wild life. Keeping some brambles won the day, for the time being, but made it clear that we needed to develop a clear plan on what we wanted to avoid confusion
The brambles, before and after tidying up
Clearing the weeds
There was also a discussion about the privet hedge with some thinking that it should be replaced by a fence as it is sometimes decribed as a 'noxious weed'. Others though were keen on keeping a trimmed hedge as providing cover for a number of beneficial insects and birds, so this argument won the day and the hedge stays.
Despite the cold weather, a lot of people turned up and it turned out to be a great day with plenty of breaks for cups of tea and lunch of Yvonne's leek & potato soup, plus bread
