Garden Project

Highbury Hall was built in the 1960s for use as a youth club. The hall can also be hired out. As of late it has fallen into a state of poor repair, and some new committee members are trying to spruce it up and make it into a useful hall again. Currently it houses a playgroup and there are occasional book fairs and some other sundry uses, but no youth club. Former Mayor Cllr. Alan Sugden decided to have a morning of weeding and pruning and we at T3 decided to help out. In between digging weeds out of various cracked paving stones, I took a few shots.

Chris gets stuck in.

Laura giving the bindweed what for.

Laura found an Elephant Hawk Moth!

Christopher really digs weeding.

Christine proudly wearing her T3 colours.

Justin gets gloved up.

We all needed some tea.

Carolyn made beverages for the crew.

A plant bed which, after years of being covered in leaf mould, has become very rich soil. We'd like to see it become a vegetable or flower bed maintained by us and the playgroup students.

There were 26 bags of weeds!

We recently were given permission to start the Community Garden, and had been on the lookout for some plants and seeds with which to start proceedings. Zillah, a friend of ours from Horsmonden, has a lovely garden that she spends a lot of time tending, and her sister usually relies on her to provide her with extra plants for her garden which she annually opens to the public. However, this year Zillah's sister did not open her garden and therefore had no need of the extra plants, so we came to the rescue and relieved her of some! While we were there, Zillah and her husband Martin proffered a bottle of home-made cider. Don't mind if I do!

It was very nice cider I must say. Had a bit of poke to it for sure, but a nice smooth flavour, somewhere between dry and medium dry, made from Worcester apples last November. Martin showed me the press he uses, which he bought for about £100.

So, with plants loaded up, we set off in the T3-mobile. 

Today we got to the Hall nice and early and after two and a half hours weeding and planting we had a nice selection of plants put in. 

Not bad for a chubby wheezing guy and  his sis with the gammy arm!

One thing we noticed was the area between the back of the hall and the rear wall of the property is quite wide, but needs some serious cleaning. Once done, it might be a nice area for some veggies. We will have to get the far end closed off though.

It looks a lot shadier than it actually is. The far end is nice and open to the sun.

UPDATE: A little bit of press coverage!

Click to see full-size. I need to send them a better picture. I hate that one.

SEPTEMBER UPDATE:

Well, the preschool is back in session and we've been keeping the plants watered and attempting to combat the weeds. We recently went there after some rainy days and found the little buggers had come back in force.

EEK!

So we set to with hoe, gardening gloves and sheer determination.

Laura was a star!

Left - weeds. Right - de-weedified lavender plants.

We were helped out this week by my mother Christine who provided us with a flat of Winter Pansy...

We also found some Winter Pansy in Tesco, reduced from £3 per flat to 75p per flat. Well, you don't see chances like that every day so I grabbed 2 flats...

Those will perk up nicely and provide a bit of winter colour.