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THE COMMUNITY GARDEN @BLEAKHOUSE LIBRARY

As this year's growing season is slowing down, we are reducing our workdays at the Library Garden to once a month, for 2 hours. For times and dates please see our events page. If anyone cannot make these but would still like to meet for a chat, please let us know and we can make arrangements for one of us to pop down.

Picture

Sandwell and Birmingham Permaculture Group in conjunction with Bleakhouse Library, Countershade http://www.countershade.org/index.html
and the Sow We Grow Together project http://countershade.org/blog/
#bagsofhelp

We are pleased to announce that we are the guardians of Bleakhouse librarys' Community garden. It was handed over to our group and the Community by Countershade who has recently renovated the space as part of the Sow We Grow Project.

We officially took over the garden on the 8th April  2017 when we had an open day which included
Plant/Seed Swop, Stalls from local producers, face painting, Nature/Art Activities for Children, refreshments, Discovering mindfulness together workshop, Garden walk and talk with fun gardening activities for all the family. You can see pictures on our photographs page.

Spring/Summer plan 2019

    Garden maintainance jobs
  • Spring tidy up to include pruning shrubs

  • Top up compost in raised beds
  • Tie up and prune willow along fence behind hexagonal bench
  • Label all beds to show what they are being used for
  • Seasonal planting in the vegetable plot
  • Move Rabbits ear out of veg plot
  • Move fruit tree cordons 
  • Clear up shed area and get rid of plastic pots
  • Prepare areas for wild flower seeds
  • Plant potatoes and beans in the raised beds
  • Prepare a bed for pumpkins

    Ongoing projects

  • Development of the Seedbank
  • Nettle research including the Nettle collective - A nettle fibre project
  • Seasonal produce picked/made from the gardens
  • Putting in a willow dome
  • Putting in a herb spiral
  • Experimenting with growing a variety of beans as part of our work looking at locally grown sustainable staple crops
  • Adding fairy doors to create a fairy wildlife trail
  • Middle area of the central bed to be developed by Warley School
 Development

  • Improve soil
  • Continue the Sow We Grow project of numbering/labelling and mapping sections of the garden
  • Re-develop cob oven to be safer and hold more heat
  • Involvement from schools/individuals/groups
  • Signs for the garden on the outside fence and possibly on the inside door
  • To get local groups to access the garden
  • To develop a volunteer group for regular gardening days
  • Events
  • Add water butts
  • Create an email list for interested parties
  • Film nights
 Permaculture plan

  • New Base map
  • Observation
  • Soil test
  • List existing plants and look at indicator plants
  • Follow P.A.S.T.E plan (plants, animals, structures, tools and events)
  • Produce a detailed plan broken down into phases
  • Copy of the permaculture plan to be available online and as a hard copy onsite
 Further development

  • Organising a monthly small farmers market/foodbank site
  • Developing the site as a mother garden
  • Talks/workshops
  • To get a sun/rain shelter


HANGING SQUASH PROJECT

PLANTS ONSITE

VEGETABLES
HERBS AND WILD PLANTS
SHRUBS AND OTHER






FRUIT