Menage a trois

I have three bicycles. The Raleigh Touriste is an old friend of nearly 20 years, the Hawk Trakatak a secondhand rather lumpen but useful introduction to mountain bikes, and the Revolution Trailfinder the newbie. I can't ride them all at once. When I got the new one I meant to find a new home for the Trakatak, but I keep finding it useful to have a scruffy bike to ride into town (Nottingham being a den of iniquity as everyone knows...)

I've been cycling more than ever over the last month or so: it's a great way of taking myself and a modicum of gardening equipment to the places where I teach gardening. I went out for a 'proper' ride today for the first time this year, and did about 20 miles up to Blidworth Bottoms (being Nottinghamshire this is pronounced 'Bliduth'). I went on the tourer, and it's really noticeable that it converts my inputs of energy into forward motion far more effectively than the mountain bikes. Try to cycle on the sandy bridlepaths around there, though, and it's all over the place. Horses for courses I guess.

Garden Diary... April

Yeah, well it's a few days late, so what? The pictures were taken in April...

There was a path under here at some point... There are also now two hanging baskets, with nasturtiums and lettuces.

2m (approx) square veg plot. Row and block planting is so boring. And sensible... I don't really recommend random blobs, but one has to try these things sometimes! The upturned yoghurt pots (Yeo Valley) have lettuces and the radishes from the 'experiment' underneath. Yes, I know you can't really transplant radishes, but I didn't want to waste them. And one has to try these things sometimes. The oblong white thing is a fleece structure with lettuces and now spinach underneath. I must get or make a proper little cloche. I've just sowed some chioggia beetroot (stripey Italian ones, very yummy) and sugar-snap peas and sorrel.

It's particularly stiking to compare this view of the garden with these ones.

'The experiment' - I dismantled this after maybe 6 weeks as I wasn't getting the right results.* Generally speaking the plants in the peat seemed to germinate slightly better and the radishes were straighter, but by the time I potted them on/transplanted them the New Horizon and garden compost ones were catching up. The coir was pretty hopeless, but people swear by it so I'll try it again with some vermiculite. It's a bit frustrating as it shows up the catch-22 of peat-free compost: not enough people use it so it's not large-scale enough to be consistent... so not enough people use it.

I'd be interested in other people's thought on composts.

*Irony alert.

Community Gardens in Manchester

I've been a pretty hopeless blogger the past few weeks, just too busy. One of the busy-nesses was a long weekend in Manchester going to art galleries, wandering the city and visiting Saddleworth, where my mother's family come from. We also spent a morning going round two community gardens in Hulme, an area which has been 'regenerated' over recent years. The first was Leaf Street Community Garden, a super permaculture garden running between two terraces of low-rise flats. There's more about it here, including films about it being created. It's a remarkable space, the more so for being completely open to the public as it's an old road and people can still walk through.

View showing the flats over-looking the garden.

General view with resident picking herbs.

Probably the largest herb spiral in the world!

A great use for old public footpath signs...

and for an old canoe!

The other community garden was Hulme Community Garden Centre, a very different but equally super place only 10 minutes down the road. It's a community garden with a garden centre in front, or a garden centre with a community garden behind it? I was particularly keen to visit as I'd got a job interview later that week covering some of the sorts of things they were doing.

Garden centre with new flats behind.

Part of the community garden area.

Super containers!

Three different ways of growing potatoes.

Their new green roof. They are going to grow vegetables on the area at the back!

My photos also show that Manchester isn't always rainy...

But I didn't get the job.