Did I say I wanted water?

Isn't the saying, be careful what you wish for. I asked for water and for three days now it's rained. Tonight, we have a presentation evening in the centre and I was hoping to show off the garden in all it's glory. Well it looks like we'll just have to look out through the window. We even bought some solar powered lights for the night, but without the sun to power them up, we'll have to resort to the plug in variety. Anyway, this is a lovely picture of the garden that is for the use of our day nursery.

Summer's on it's way, I can tell by the amount of bedding plants being delivered to the centre on a daily basis. Sue, our garden worker, used to get excited when she saw the new plants, now she let's out a little groan. This is because we haven't errected the poytunnel over on the allotment site yet, and the little greenhouse is fit to burst with tomato, lettuce and cucumber plants. However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel (excuse the pun), the base for the polytunnel is near completion and the company that will construct it has been booked to carry out the work, and we are having a plant sale at the end of the month, after which we'll have more space, for, guess what, more plants!

views from my office window

my office window looks out on the car park, beyond that to some lovely shrubs, and a tennis court and in the background there are the majestic Brecon Beacons. When I began working in DOVE, http://www.doveworkshop.org the view was completly different, it was black to start with, (we are situated on an ex coal screening site) and coal lorries passed by the window, then the view changed to that of learners parking their cars and parents bring their children to the nursery and the environment gradually improved. Yesterday, I looked out and there was a gentleman passing the window with tomato plants in a box which he had bought (at a very low cost) from our garden project, the views from my window reminds me of the development of our organisation and our community.

water, water everywhere, except in our garden

We (as in the project team) have been trying to organise a water supply for the allotment site, before Dwr Cymru can make the connection we have to find a contractor to dig out a trench and lay pipes in the garden. Little did we know how time consuming this would be, however after making many telephone calls and getting very frustrated, we have finally found someone and guess what he's starting on Monday - Hooray! All we have to do now is make sure Dwr Cymru is booked to make the connection. This project has been an eye opener for me, so far we've built beds, constructed paths, cleared the overgrowth (well not me personally) and organised water supplies and I'm still waiting to pick a carrot, who thought gardening could be so complicated? Our next challenge is constructing the polytunnel, HELP!

Hi, this is my first attempt at writing a blog so bear with me. I've been working with a group of people from the community of Banwen and the surrounding area to develop the Sarn Helen Community Garden for over two years. The garden project has two sites, one is behind DOVE workshop and is, what I call, a learning garden, it has been designed by learners on a horticulture class and is a lovely area to sit and reflect on life or for the more active amongst us an opportunity to dig in, quite literally. The other site is behind Roman Road and used to be an allotments assocation which we are now turning into a community garden that our community can come to visit, chat, grow vegetables, and generally enjoy ourselves. As I learn how to use this blog more effectively I will be sharing photographs and news and my thoughts on the garden and I hope others involved in the project, volunteers, learners and project staff will add comments, so watch this space!