29th November 2012

The orchard benefited from some weeding, top dressing and companion planting of mint today. It was a beautiful crisp sunny day and everyone enjoyed working outside even though it was cold! We also had an exceptionally young volunteer helping us to sweep leaves up to make some leaf mulch for the future!

We have also started to put out a table with produce on for the first time-we included decorations made from the garden, bird and bat boxes, shopping bags made from recycled textiles and bags of logs -see below. We hope this will develop into an income stream with plants and fruit and vegetables added to the table in the future.

27th November 2012

Our wall hanging for the new garden room was completed today! Lots of community group members have created a panel or taken photographs or embellished this hanging which looks great and explains what our "green" values are. The garden room is used by the gardener, the volunteer manager and all our volunteers for briefings, sociable tea breaks and training.

Also, today Sarah ran a workshop on "Making Decorations from the Garden" - 9 people attended and you can see some of the results below! We are hoping that making and selling decorations will provide an income stream for the garden.

November 22nd 2012

Sarah and I went to Manchester for a Local Food Share, Learn and Improve Event. This meant catching the 6.39 am train! When we arrived at Piccadilly Station the weather was better then expected so we enjoyed a walk along the Ashton Canal to Merci where the event was held. About 30 people attended from projects across the North West which were very varied -from a farm to bee keeping to cooking! The morning was spent looking at income generation and the afternoon discussing impact assessment -there were also lots of opportunties to chat to people! I spoke with Tracy from Food Link North West about raising our profile and marketing events next year and to Lorraine from Local Food about our PR responsibilities.Our journey home was eventful due to the floods in Cumbria but we got there in the end!!

November 17th 2012

The Community Gardening Day was a great success! The sky was blue and the sun was shining and we moved a huge pile of compost onto the vegetable beds, swept leaves up for composting, painted signs, planted shallots and salad, improved the asparagus bed and did loads of work in the orchard. The cafe provided a wonderful lunch of jacket potatoes, cheese and salad and many cups of tea were drunk!! There were fifteen of us and everyone worked really hard!

November 13th 2012

Lots more leaf collecting-we will have lots of lovely mulch in the future!!

And more onion planting too!

November 6th

The demonstration back yard is gradually being developed with vegetables and salads in pots and some staging. We have strawberry plants on the staging now, but that will probably change next spring. We have been cropping chard and mizuma from pots for the cafe today

November 1st 2012

We have been sweeping leaves, moving compost, planting onions and peas and thinning out some crops

Introductions

Here is Sarah McCormack, our gardener for the Local Food Project. She has lots of knowledge and experience and is getting on well with everyone and teaching us a lot! She has already run several workshops and some people are clearly really taking to the idea of food growing and sustainability!

This is me, Kim Farr, and I am the Volunteer Development Manager - I have taken over the management and reporting of the Local Food Project now that the construction phase is complete! I have been volunteering and working at Ford Park for the last five years and am very excited about our newly refurbished kitchen Garden!!

October 31st 2012

Our first family food growing workshop -we looked at soil types, making compost and sowing peas and salads -very enjoyable!

October 25th 2012

A great visit to Lime Kiln Wood and the Community Orchard in Grange over Sands. The lead volunteer in the orchard showed us around and gave us some very useful information about fruit that they have found grows well in this area-this will help us to develop our tiny orchard and install the right apple trees in the walled garden

October 16th 2012

We have been taking cuttings from gooseberry bushes, setting up tool cleaning stations, collecting educational resources together, planting garlic and other companion plants, thinning out and sowing seeds in the green house!

October 11th 2012

Lots of people are involved in sweeping up the leaves from our grounds (outside the kitchen garden) to put aside to make some great leaf mulch for the future!

October 2nd 2012

Very busy sowing seeds and potting on as well as looking after the salads that are growing on the Coach House terrace- we are cropping salads on a small but regular basis for the cafe. Some volunteers really enjoy the fiddly but productive work of harvesting -Lawrence especially! We have been planting onions, broad beans, beetroot, salads, herbs, leeks and much more!!

September 27th 2012

We have been planting wild strawberries and green manure today!

September 25th

First workshop on Growing Herbs -lots of interest!! We have looked at three ways of propagating herbs -some people are keen to learn to improve what they are doing at home or on their allotments, some are having a go for the first time.

September 20th

David and Steve are making potting formers out of recycled wood-really useful for our work in the green house! Everyone is very busy sowing lots of salads!

September 13th 2012

Lots of volunteers in gardening today-we are getting on really well!

September 11th

Had a great meeting with lots of volunteers and the gardener Sarah and the chef Rufino. Have planned lots of interesting planting with the cafe in mind!

September 9th 2012

The Official Opening of our beautifully restored walled Victorian Kitchen Garden which has been fabulously funded by the Big Lottery Local Food funding stream!! Our local deputy mayor and chair of Ulverston in Bloom, Judy Pickthall, cut the ribbon and then everyone had a look around. We were entertained by the people who had attended the family singing workshop and fed some lovely fruit juice and vegetable snacks by our cafe chef. Over 100 people came and the sun shone- a great success!!


Important People-in the photograph below you can see (from left to right) our garden designer David Redmore, our project manager for the construction phase Jackie Williams and our lead contractor Chris Rabone