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.