Thursday, October 01, 2009

I must be mad

Isobel brought home a letter this week asking for volunteers to take over the school vegetable garden. I've wanted to start a community garden project for ages and have been on the lookout for vacant plots of land, but never found anything. I went in and volunteered at the school on Tuesday, and handed in my CRB today, so should be able to start the gardening club in 6-8 weeks! I met the current volunteer today, she's been doing it for 7 years but is retiring next week, and it's a bleeding huge responsibility. Eeek. She's got stuff growing that I've never even looked at, and has seven massive raised beds. I can't work with the children yet, so as of next week it'll just be general maintenance and tidying up after school one day a week. I'm really excited but after looking at it today it's so, so daunting. I may have to kidnap my gardening friend Thursday with her horticultural qualification, I feel very under-qualified for the job.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Gardening is a wonderful experience! I remember my Grandmother teaching me as a kid. When I grew up, I started doing it again. We now provide about 30% of the food we eat. We have 10 raised beds of various sizes. We also helped to start a few community gardens her in Utah. I think it is a wonderful thing. General rule of thumb... if you don't want it growing there,... it is a weed. The most daunting part for me is keeping it pesticide free. So we use 'mum' related flowers and let the birds eat the slugs and we pray for praying mantis'!
You can do it! It is well worth the effort in my opinion. Particularly in light of the food recalls and such. Besides, what could be cooler than eating food you raised yourself...for free!

Thursday said...

Bollocks madam, you're perfectly capable! I am, however, more than willing to give advice or whatever. If you like, send me a 'floorplan' including sizes of beds and what you've got in mind to grow or what's already there. High five you for taking it on. You can then come and do my allotment :)
laundryoflife @ aol . co . uk