After last night's thunderstorms I woke this morning to a typical British summer's day- grey, wet and chilly. A good enough reason to have a bit of a lie-in watching both pairs of birds that have taken up residence above the bedroom windows as they flew back and forth with food for their hungry broods. Eventually I made it out to the garden, via the PC and my jigsaw, and found that it
had stopped raining and warmed up.
Today's task was to sort out the steps and path leading to the chickens' run. I am not so happy with my handiwork as it is a bit of a bodge job and I'm thinking about losing the bottom step and leaving it as grass. In spite of last night's storm the ground is very dry which made it easier to dig. As I was muttering to myself about the presence of that solid clay which needed attacking with a mattock I suddenly
remembered the first serious gardening I did in London many years ago. As part of a local wildlife/environmental group we were involved in creating a community garden out of some
derelict land just off Cable Street in East London. We used no mechanised tools at all but relied on pickaxes, mattocks and crowbars to dig our way through the foundations of houses that had been bombed back in the war. We would have given our eye teeth for soil such as I have got now. The local mounted police donated us a mountain of stable manure to compost and I remember one memorable occasion when the heap combusted and the fire -engines were called out, possibly by the nuns who lived in the convent across the street. The community garden became a successful venture and some years ago I saw a
TV programme which showed local families growing vegetables there and enjoying the outdoor space. In that area just outside the City nobody has any sort of garden, only balconies or window boxes. This was where Peter grew up and now we live in the least populated county in England in a beautiful rural valley. We are so fortunate.
I've just checked and the gardens are still going strong, hooray for local projects. More info at
http://www.opensquares.org/detail.php?square=CableSt
After last night's thunderstorms I woke this morning to a typical British summer's day- grey, wet and chilly. A good enough reason to have a bit of a lie-in watching both pairs of birds that have taken up residence above the bedroom windows as they flew back and forth with food for their hungry broods. Eventually I made it out to the garden, via the PC and my jigsaw, and found that it had stopped raining and warmed up.
Today's task was to sort out the steps and path leading to the chickens' run. I am not so happy with my handiwork as it is a bit of a bodge job and I'm thinking about losing the bottom step and leaving it as grass. In spite of last night's storm the ground is very dry which made it easier to dig. As I was muttering to myself about the presence of that solid clay which needed attacking with a mattock I suddenly remembered the first serious gardening I did in London many years ago. As part of a local wildlife/environmental group we were involved in creating a community garden out of some derelict land just off Cable Street in East London. We used no mechanised tools at all but relied on pickaxes, mattocks and crowbars to dig our way through the foundations of houses that had been bombed back in the war. We would have given our eye teeth for soil such as I have got now. The local mounted police donated us a mountain of stable manure to compost and I remember one memorable occasion when the heap combusted and the fire -engines were called out, possibly by the nuns who lived in the convent across the street. The community garden became a successful venture and some years ago I saw a TV programme which showed local families growing vegetables there and enjoying the outdoor space. In that area just outside the City nobody has any sort of garden, only balconies or window boxes. This was where Peter grew up and now we live in the least populated county in England in a beautiful rural valley. We are so fortunate.
I've just checked and the gardens are still going strong, hooray for local projects. More info at http://www.opensquares.org/detail.php?square=CableSt
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