Planning for Spring

We've made the decision as a group to stop current planting and focus on planning for next Spring. We will be at the Grow your Own event at Woodthorpe Park on the 15th September, 10am-3pm, so come along and say hi. If you can help on the stall, please email us on sowingsherwood(at)transitionsherwood.org.uk

A beautiful partnership with the Neighbourhood Watch

One thing I kept telling myself to do but never got round to doing was to put some small text about Sowing Sherwood into the bi-monthly NG5 Magazine. I received the August & September copy through my door last night, I flick through the pages, and come across the local Neighbourhood Watch page to find that they are looking to run a similar project to us, called Blooming Sherwood.

So last night, I called Michael, whose contact details were on the article, and explained who I was and told him about the Sowing Sherwood project. He told me that he had heard of it before and was going to make contact.

So we discussed about the background of the project, and we thought best not to duplicate these projects as they are pretty much the same project. So we have decided to merge the projects, and stick with the Sowing Sherwood name since we have a logo and flyers printed.

So great to see that we aren't alone in wanting to improve areas of Sherwood!

Tidying up!

On Sunday 28th July, a few of us spent some time tidying up the patch we have at Winchester St car park. We also returned to the other patch on the ground we had planted a few months ago - as we found it had grown a lot!

If you have any knowledge of growing food, please get in touch, and we are also looking for people to get involved with any watering & maintenance.

No plant!

Sadly, due to energy levels from a busy weekend, we didn't manage to plant tonight. Instead we discussed what we would need to do next. It was mentioned that we require the following items to continue:

• Organic non-peat compost / manure
• Organic fertiliser (rotenone, pyrethrum)
• Green manure
• Netting
• Canes

If you can help with the above, please get in touch with us.

Outreach and...signs!

We've been doing lots of outreach - through freeconomy, through Streetbank, and through Facebook. We've now set up a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and a flickr account to store our photos.

And we've got the flyer wording changed to match the fact we are now at Winchester St car park. We're getting these printed to put in local community areas very soon!

One of our wonderful volunteers, Katie, has produced some brilliant signs for the beds!! And so tonight we have put up the signs, which will hopefully draw people to the beds to see what's going on!

Whilst we were doing this, another person living opposite the beds spotted us and he has donated some spare plants - cabbages and cauliflowers! And we also heard that Michael's friend has some purple sprouting brocolli and some bee-friendly plants to donate to us!

So...we're going to dig up another area of the beds, just a bit further down, on Sunday evening at 6pm. Join us there if you can! Bring any tools and some water!

We have water!

Whilst watering the plants with our own water, the lady opposite the beds at 126 has very kindly offered to provide us with water from her house! This is great news! So if anyone needs any water, knock on her door, and you should be able to get some!

Oh and we did some planting today!

More clearing, more planting!

So we've just been donated some more plants from a lady who ran an Open Gardens plant sale event, and so we're going out to plant them at the end of the month. They're mainly bee-friendly plants, with a few herbs! The plants we've planted so far really need water, so anyone who lives locally, please give them some water! Our existing plants seem to be doing okay and are growing!

A flyer! And more planting!

So we've just had this amazing flyer designed by someone on the Facebook group!

And we've been doing some more planting, with new volunteers! We've now planted peas, purple sprouting broccoli, and radishes! Can't wait to see these grow.

            

At the moment we are aiming to recruit people to water the beds! So if anyone is around, please spare some time to water them!

Where there is a loss, there is an opportunity

So the sad news we've heard this week that the plants we put in at the area before the woodland have been strimmed and due to lack of water, they haven't survived.

BUT....we've just started work on the raised beds at Winchester Street car park! Using the plants we got donated from the plant swap, we've now put in some herbs and salads in the bed by Mansfield Street. Next steps, to get a flyer designed to spread the word, and organise further plantings!

The Launch - International Permaculture Day

So today is International Permaculture Day!

And we had 5 people come along to get involved in the launch of Sowing Sherwood. We've planted chives, strawberries and wildflowers for the bees. The area looks like a rubbish dumping ground so we're going to have to be careful...Fingers crossed these plants take! There were concerns of lack of water use...so we're going away to think how we deal with it.

Also, I've had a meeting with new neighbourhood officer for Sherwood, Leigh White, who has given full support of the project! I also met with local councillors and they have also shown full support! I showed Leigh the pictures of the walkabout we did, and she thinks the most likely place she can support with is Winchester Street car park - land owned by the council. She explained that the council are supportive of community gardening projects, which is fantastic to hear.

We have plants!

So we've just had the plant swap - it was a beautiful sunny day and very warm! And we received lots of donations of plants!

And we've had members of Transition Sherwood who have donated us packets of seeds and seedlings to plant. So we've decided to launch the Sowing Sherwood project on International Permaculture Day - 1st May - and we've decided to choose the area of land just before the woodland leading to the community centre. So read the next post to find out how we got on!

The Walkabout

So I thought I'd fill you in on what's happened in Sherwood since my last post. I joined the local Transition Town group - Transition Sherwood, who work on local community projects which tackle global issues. And food is a pretty serious global issue. So this project will be a sub-group of the Transition group. So I started my own Facebook group for others to join if they're interested and posted a message on other local Facebook groups I have found.

So we got a fantastic response to the call out! And so I proposed that we go for a walkabout to map the area and find where we could plant. And so we went! And we found some fantastic locations - all potential spaces.

The next steps will be to choose a spot and go and plant! ....but, we haven't got any plants....

BUT, next weekend is a 20mph celebration event at Haydn School where Transition Sherwood is holding a plant swap. This is our perfect opportunity to gain plants! We'll let you know how it goes next week.

Experiences from Incredible Edible

Hey everyone. So I've just moved to Sherwood from Oakham in Rutland. Last year I learnt about the amazing Incredible Edible movement - transforming unloved area of land in the community into herbs, vegetables and bee-friendly flowers.

It inspired me so much that I was determined to start a project. Whilst living in Oakham, there wasn't so much to do, so I put some time into creating Incredible Edible Oakham. The first location I tried was unfortunately turned down by the landowner, because he didn't "get" why growing vegetables was beneficial in the community - his loss! So I tried another place - by a nearby Plastics company there was raised beds, sitting empty...the perfect spot. So I contacted the Plastics company and successfully managed to gain permission! I immediately wanted to involve the children from nearby schools - as it a fantastic way for them to learn about growing food, and making a difference in the community. I put the message out, and got an incredible response - lots wanted to help! So the kids have been planting over the last few weeks - am very excited to see what comes out of their brilliant work!