Hi everybody, My name is Lisa Nicholls. I've been using the Springfield Project since  January 2011. I recently decided to volunteer at the allotments with Clare, especially as my youngest started school. I've had an amazing time down there, both with and without my children.
  I would thoroughly recommend any parent looking to get more active with their children to come and join our sessions on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11am. We meet at the centre and walk down together.
  This is an amazing opportunity for both parents and children to get their hands dirty in a safe, pleasant environment, and generally just get back to nature.
I really hope to see more parents down there. If you want to ask someone who has benefitted from being down there I'm there on a Tuesday and Wednesday...feel free to ask me :)
See you all soon
Lisa

RHS Level 3 Developing Award for Springfield Project Allotment

Last week saw the combination of all the hard work from The Springfield Project volunteers and families rewarded by being given a Level 3: Developing at the RHS award ceremonies at The Tower Ballroom, Edgbaston.   We felt this was a great start to a community allotment food growing site that started from scratch in March this year. 

 Lisa Nicholls and me at the award ceremony!

The RHS judges comments were "The involvement of so many young people and toddlers is a joy to see" and went on the comment that "The foresight of the group in taking photographic evidence of the birth of this allotment, including mishaps... makes their portfolio an invaluable teaching aid".

Next on the to do list is a visit to the Hall Green scout group who received "Outstanding" to pick up tips on how to improve the site.  We will also build on the inspiration we received from our visit to Masefield Gardens part of Northfield EcoCentre.

And of course we have our winter projects to turn into reality, what to do with the pig trough?  How to get all weather shelter on site and encourage more people in the local area to take up the vacant plots at the Knowle Road site.  All challenging in their own ways!

Northfield EcoCentre visit

We thought we would visit the Northfield Eco centre to see what allotment growing looked like with them!  And what a great surprise - lots of innovative ways to grow and cultivate plants - the herb spiral was my favorite along with using cut down milk bottles to grow herbs in .  Thanks to everyone who made our visit so enjoyable!

And my did we eat a lot!  Nasturtiums, chives, lettuce, beetroot, mung beans - all eaten with gusto outside - amazing how that works - all mum's please note!  A picnic with your children can transform their palate - include fresh air and plenty of fresh fruit and veg for nothing short of a miracle! 

Strawberries

Nothing beats strawberries picked fresh!  We harvested these at the beginning of the summer - and even though a lot were eaten along the way, we still managed to take some home with us.  

   

We made jam and wine from about 10lb of strawberries harvested.  Not to mention strawberry jelly and a seemingly never ending conversation about what strawberries go well with!

The children also planted up their sunflower seeds in a race to see who would grow the biggest sunflower!

Up-cycle plastic bottles...

Into what you might ask.  Well 2 ltr plastic pop bottles actually make remarkable good hanging baskets! First seen in Sparkhill during the Springfield Outdoors Be Healthy week here:

  

The families that have been coming down to the allotment recently saw the hanging baskets on the gazebo we had outside and wanted to make some on the allotment.  Quite simple really:

• Take one 2 ltr plastic bottle - rinsed 
• Puncture the base of the bottle with knife or skewer 
• Remove the plastic cap
• Thread string through to make a continuous loop (this is the hanging part)
• Lay the bottle horizontal and cut a rectangle in the side of it
• Fill it with soil and plant up with strawberry plants/nasturtiums or other trailing plants.  Pansy's do very well as well we discovered

These are what we made together:

                                                              

The force needed to put the holes in the bottle is significant so this is a job for adults.  Be real careful with your enthusiastic helpers!

As with hanging baskets, these need a lot of watering.  I've been watering mine everyday, especially when the weather is as hot as it is at the moment.  If you make one, let me know :) 

Ode to the Mattock

Remember my waxing lyrical about the Mattock?  That marvellous tool that turned potato trench digging into something approaching easy?

Well here is the tool in all it's glory...

Technique - you stand square on to the trench and chop the soil towards you, making a ditch and a mound of earth with which you later cover the potatoes with.  Trust me, so much easier than using a spade.

And for those of you that asked, you can buy them on the Stratford Road in Choices for £13.99... I know!  How good is that!

Seedlings

The name of The Springfield Project's Stay and Play group Seedlings - and also the name of this post as today was all about starting the growing process with 3 things, soil, water and seeds.  Simple.

Since we had to wait to grow seeds as our greenhouse was broken, we thought we would make up for lost time and plant everything we could find!  A great approach to gardening with children by the way - an overspill of enthusiasm and "lets try everything" is better than a slower methodical approach for the under 5's.  It's more fun.

However much fun you make planting up seeds, please don't do what we did and write up the labels in pencil...we now have no idea what we are growing as the marks have rubbed off the labels due to watering them...ophs :-)

We'll be learning plant identification through necessity soon, when the seed leaves pop up and we are frantically trying to work out our red onions from our marigolds...can't be that hard!

Pleased with getting some seeds planted up and a 2 weeks later seeing them come up - all this and a complete greenhouse, things are looking good.

Time for some serious gardening...

So far this blog has been mostly about what happens when you try and set up a community allotment from scratch in about 6 weeks.

Now to the serious business of growing things - but what to grow exactly and can you just follow the instructions on packets and grow food?

One of the greatest parts of being on a community allotment is that you can ask these questions and people will stop, spend the time of day with you and give you their honest opinion.

This is great!  Because above all gardening is a social activity - not meant to be done in isolation!  So with the advice and general consensus of the plot holders I set about digging potato trenches for my sack of Kestrel potatoes.

 No one told me just how hard digging a potato trench is, especially when you need about 20 of them all 18ft long....Still thanks to Jim who introduced me to the mattock a serious bit of gardening kit.

I can't recommend it highly enough. It takes a significant effort to wield it in earnest  but boy if you have the energy it makes potato digging a piece of cake.  I'll take a picture of it next time and introduce you to it!

I have a new like-minded friend on the allotment - Leona has joined in on a Wednesday recently and we've been planning the next crops and planting the potatoes together.  Need to thank Piper here for her excellent contribution to potato sowing.

Smash!

And then the glass broke....   such a fragile thing a glass house in the middle of what is essentially a field.

At last a reason to be joyful for the delayed planting season...as this happened in late March I thought I'd have plenty of time to fix it.  And surely it isn't hard to find, buy and cut the glass to fit!  Actually it's not that easy but that is another story.  The outcome of my broken greenhouse was:

1. A small delay in planting up seeds

2. A chance for me to speak to almost everyone on the allotment site about it!

The outcome was really rather good in terms of community - I feel like I am part of one now.  So thanks to that rouge gust of wind... and hi to everyone from Knowle Road Allotments who helped me, directed me or fixed the greenhouse.

What do they say about children and glass houses....

Can't remember - probably just as well since I can proudly reveal the Springfield Project Outdoors first greenhouse - queue drum roll!

If you are bored by jigsaws and need to stretch the brain matter a little I would suggest finding a secondhand greenhouse, having it disassembled by someone, not talking to that person about the rebuild and then spend a good number of hours rebuilding it and fitting glass panels in until it looks right!  I make it sound easier than it was...

Thanks to Nigel and Dennis who on day 2 of the greenhouse build, nailed it - thanks!

Big Dig Event

Saturday saw the first ever Big Dig event on Knowle Road Allotment site - the weather was against us but seeds where planted and children got stuck in with a trowel and spade.

As it's a bit early in the season for planting seeds outside, we asked children to plant courgette seeds in a pot of seed compost and take them home to grown on their window sill.  We invited them back once the seeds are ready to go outside and either plant them at the allotment or in their own back gardens.

Thanks to everyone of the Allotment for their positive contributions and to the staff at the Big Dig who made sure we had good advertising and great event guidance!

From humble beginnings...

This is what we started with on plan B of the SpringfieldProject Allotment....

And 4 weeks later we have moved the shed to the new allotment site, dug over half of the site and built some compost bins.  Not bad going from when we decided to transfer sites after weeks and weeks of water logged nightmare.  This is where we came from...

And this is what it looks like now...new site and better soil and far better drainage - I think we can grow stuff here!

Next is to get the greenhouse which has been donated to the Project picked up and rebuilt on the site behind the shed...fingers crossed we don't break the glass....

:)