Hey, hello! I’m back! But not as you’ve known me, if you have been reading this over the last six months, for I’m no longer an apprentice… From this week I am Assistant Grower!
‘What does this mean!?’ I hear you cry. Well, first up, and most excitingly, it means I have my very own site! With all the knowledge that I amassed as an apprentice (though, as you’ll know, I still have a looooong way to go!) Growing Communities decided that this was the best way of continuing its fledgling learning programme. ‘My’ site, in Clissold Park, is the smallest of the three sites on which we grow food for the local veggie box scheme.
Welcome to my site! Here you can see just how small it is. On the right is the edge of the Butterfly Tunnel, which is run by Clissold Park and is open to the public over the summer months.
It’s actually our oldest site but is one that Ru, Growing Communities’ Grower, has been running in a fairly low maintenance way. For the last year or so, it has been getting a once a month visit from a team of volunteers. Unlike the other sites, only longer developing field crops are grown here – pumpkins, chard, garlic, globe artichokes, and the like. These don’t need too much attention and can be picked for the veggie box infrequently.
Now, however, things are set to change. It’ll now benefit (I hope!) from one day’s work a week from me, with volunteers still coming once a month to give me a hand. So it’s out with the slow developing crops and in with the salad. Will just have to see how much I’ll be able to contribute to the fantastic salad bags I hope I’ve given you a taste for over the last six months. I’m so excited to give it a go.
So, my day at the site this week was spent getting a feel for the place, pacing it out, working out how much equipment I will need, how many metres of hose-pipe I need to set up an irrigation system, how many metres of shade cloth I’ll be needing to cover the beds once they are planted up, how much netting, the number of hoops required. And then there was working out how many lengths of scaffolding planks, or other suitable material, I need to repair the raised beds. Lots of hard construction work to be done before the growing season begins next year…
Here, for example, the bed needs to be restructured to get rid of this incredibly thin path – you can’t even turn around in it!
And then, of course, there’s all the mind stuff to work through, including how the new crop rotations will work if we are to ensure the site meets our organic standards… But that, my friends, will have to come next week. See you then.
ps. I totally realise that this site doesn’t reflect any of the changes: a blog overhaul is on its way too….
Weekly stats…
Grower: 1 | Assistant Grower: 1 | Volunteers: 4 (last volunteer day at this site for the year) | Dog: 1
