Tuesday 17th May
Tuesday brought us to the Suntrap garden just behind the RBoS offices at Gogarburn on the west side of the city. This was a sparkling little gem of a garden hidden down a dusty old back-road, which was far bigger inside than it looked from the carpark.
They had a fine selection of plants there, including houtynia, vibirnum rytidifolium, deutzia, choisya ternata, prunus, and many more. Some of the group cracked on with repairing a long rabbit-proof fence which had inadvertantly been providing access to some plant-guzzling little beggars from the nearby forest. A few of us tackled the weeds that had invaded parts of the garden – Tobias, David and myself managed to fill two or three bulk bags full of the little green pests and give the garden a good spring-cleaning ready for the Open Day on Sunday. Task of the day was the removal of a large stump lodged in one of the beds, which was attacked by Neil and Tobias at first and then Rob and Charlie came to join in the bashing and the beating.
Wednesday 18th May
The Wednesday group was ferried down to Inverleith Allotments to create a nice little structure giving the gardeners better access to a large storage container from the main path (with a handy handrail for them), and there was also a compost bin to repair for those who didn’t fancy banging in fence posts.
Charlie oversaw the shifting and shovelling of the compost from one bin to the next along with Kirsty Willie and Tommy who braved the stink of the putrefying compost for the whole day without complaint. The rest of us cracked on with the construction work, and the whole worksite was overflowing with enthusiasm, both at the testing nature of the task and at the return of our jovial leader Mr Peach.
Laughter and discussion broke out spontaneously all morning and if someone had brought a guitar with them it’s likely that a rousing song would have split the air before midday. Tears were shed at lunchtime during Charlie’s farewell speech and he was presented with a signed card from the group. Special thanks to Neasa the steadfast trooper who spent all day unravelling an enormous piece of string and didn’t get involved in all the excitement……….(PH)
Thursday 19th May
So today we were back at Inverleith Allotments…to continue building the hard standing area. Fortunately (? is that the right word?) there were not too many people out, which was probably just as well as the work site is extremely small. So those who were out were split between cutting boards for the wood surrounds and hand rails and sorting compost. Yup thats right. On the plus side it was fairly dry.
The aim was to sort out the larger pieces which hadn’t rotted down…but there were a fair number of these…so it may have been easier to remove the stuff that had rotten down. Fortunately then Stuart (of the Allotment Association) came by to say just to put the stuff into bags…so that task was finished pretty quickly.
There was a bit of debate as to whether to add a ‘step’ into the hard-standing area, next to the ramp…or whether it would be a trip hazard and prevent the door of the storage container from opening…so one was installed in the end. It was a bit of a tight-fit. Lunch was spent in the sunshine…cut short by eager volunteers keen to get back to work. Then much barrowing of Type 1 commenced and continued for the rest of the afternoon.
The work was all finished by about 3pm (quicker than we had anticipated – but then thats the Thursday group for you!). The hard-standing area looks excellent and now they have somewhere to store those nice wheelbarrows (the ones that actually seem to work….).
