Photos of all 3 community gardens

What a difference a few days work makes as I'm pleased to say the 3rd garden is well under way with Hilda's deck having an undercoat of weed suppressant and a topping of recycled Cornish compost ready for planting up when the night frosts and the chilly Northerly wind plaguing us lately finish, usually the beginning of May in this part of the country.

The rest of this new project has moved on to the stage we are almost ready for some imaginative planting of the new beds  thanks to some hard work by the 'site steward' Billy, assisted by me, in a chilly wind that was blowing all week. I have put a photo below of how it looked today. I've also added photos of the other two gardens mentioned in my last blog on Monday last.

I had the pleasure of growing some Swiss Chard Bright Lights for the Bodmin schools to grow on in a competition under the 'Bodmin in Bloom' banner so when delivering them I had the chance to invite anyone interested to come and look at our site, particularly to view our gardens, as 4 of the schools had wildlife attracting gardens themselves and maybe can give us some tips and all took me up on the offer so we will be pressing on with this new garden a.s.a.p.

Formal Garden above and Wildlife attracting area on the left.

Hilda sails in

Ever since the birth of this allotment site, we wanted to make this project different from anything else seen in Cornwall, part of that ethos was to create community gardens near the entrance for the many visitors we get to enjoy.    The plans for these have changed a few times along the way but we are now starting to create the 3rd and last garden with the first two starting to look mature now being their second year. A wildlife attracting area with a very mature fallen Beech tree forming the back and a pond at present teeming with tadpoles is very popular, all the plants donated by the tenants will attract the bees and butterflies and the tiny formal garden directly outside the main shed has 4 matching beds with a flower urn in the middle looks good now the spring flowers are out.

We were looking for a bit of inspiration for this 3rd one, it's quite an area and needs to look right so imagine our pleasure in obtaining an old 15 ft dinghy complete with sails and rudder to use as a focal point. It had to be fetched from Exeter but should have known we could rely on Billy, the tenant who bought and donated the boat, to go up and fetch it late one evening. I kept him company and we eventually arrived at the allotment site around 11.30pm with the boat still in tow. Pitch black, no light anywhere so it had to stay in the car park overnight but as soon as dawn broke we were back easing her in thro the narrow gap in the Cornish hedge and into the gate to place in her last resting berth. She was tilted slightly towards the South West for maximum light and the deck will be planted up once the night frosts have passed. She has been given a new coat of green paint as the mixture of yellow and blue flaking off didn't look good. Gardens will now be created around and along from Hilda as she is now known and was the spark we needed to get our creative juices going. Hilda was the name of Billy's dearly loved mother-in-law who has recently passed away and we thought it was a fitting name, so many have known a Hilda in their lives with fondness, even my wife's mother was a Hilda too. A Hilda is an anagram of Dahlia so perhaps we will use this popular flower to form the base of our gardens around her.

A very productive day

Our combined seed and plant swop and help day dawned with heavy overcast skies after a glorious early spring sunny week and I feared the event might not be well attended. I had a list of jobs I was hoping to get some help with but I shouldn't have been so pessimistic as on arriving on site 30 mins later than I said I would due to the previous late night giving a talk to the St. Breward garden club, there was hardly a car park space left as our reliable 'team' were already there, the first job on the list had already been completed. The main shed which had enough earth on the floor to create another plot was all swept up and tidied and plants and seeds were on display to be sold for club funds or swopped. 3 bird boxes made by Paul and his grandson were also available for selling and attracted a lot of comment during the day.

Within the next 3 hours, thanks to some sterling efforts, all jobs had been finished, e.g.digging of plots that tenants had need of help with for various reasons, community gardens dug and weeded, rubbish all around site cleared and burnt off, the 'sheep pen' dismantled ready for the 3rd community garden to be formed, grass cut, new tenants given moral support and advice, plus more besides.We all had a tea break, photo above, which was needed as altho the weather was overcast, it was warm for late March.
The seeds, plants and bird boxes were mostly sold as folk left to rest their achy limbs and backs and tenants who had been worried about their plots were full of praise for the great community spirit we have here at Lanhydrock, not common with other allotment sites, I know from experience. Another photo shows 7 volunteers revealing that there WAS earth under all the weeds on plot 50. At one point there were 11 people working at the same time on this plot and shows what can be done.
Ruth and I don't think we could have a better crew of allotmenteers if we tried. Thanks to you all !