We’ve had a wee break from blogging but will give a quick update on what’s been happening in the garden. We have a new resident in the garden – a swan! Well, a wicker swan. This was made as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival and has remained in the garden for quite some time. The weaving was done in partnership with an artist, Natalie Taylor, and the WLYAP (West Lothian Youth Action Project). The Green Gym gang got to help finish the swan off and even got to be in few promotional photographs!
Two trays of wildflowers were planted in the cleared patch so we will patiently await next year to see what they all look like in bloom. A tree stump was finally removed much to the delight of some volunteers – it was quite hard work!
We grew a carrot! Our first EVER trying out seed tape. Limited success I think you’ll agree…
We have been awarded another round of funding from CSV Action Earth Grab a Grant and will put in some over wintering seeds as well as giving the orchard some oomph. Planting will take place shortly and up until spring time.
In areas where we don’t plant food stuffs, we’ll sow some more green manure after the success of it last year. With the funding we will finally be able to complete our hazel turf seat – if we can find enough long sticks and branches to replace all those that have been removed for dogs to fetch…
One of our longest serving volunteers found himself a job! We will keep you posted on how he gets on and if he’ll have time in his busy schedule to still be able to visit the garden every so often.
Many a leaves has been raked already and many a weed and buttercup have been helping to fill the compost bins. We also raked out some woodchip to replenish the supply that was put down almost two years ago and revamped the sensory path and mulched round some shrubs.
Alyson had a bit of a change to her usual garden group and swapped the walled garden for sand dunes north of Wick! The task was to help stabilise sand dunes and help prevent sand blowing on to tracks that lead a pipeline in to the ocean – a far more sophisticated operation than that clearly!
