Visit to Incredible Edible, Todmorden

 Toddy, as its known to its locals is a place of inspiration and boldness. They have turned their whole town into an abundant basket of food growing spaces.  Here is a small glimpse of their genius and creativity. Do click on the link further down to see more on their website.

This visit was run by Food 360 and Longhill Link up Trust, So thanks to them both :-)

 A local front garden, Mary Clear's, a leading force locally, now a public larder of fresh food.

 Local produce, fair prices, in locally owned and run shops, does it get any better?

 The Health centre healing and herbal garden

 A rather fine planter and seat made from simple planking - one to complement by copying.

 Insect and bee home made from slices of bamboo, simple, cheap and a bee life saver

 BEEautiful high rise living, art and function mixed so well.

 Bird boxes made by local artists, all along the Green Route

More insect homes in a high rise style

One of the many signs around the 'Green Route' which shares ideas and plant identities

A huge veg plot by the railway station

The local church, now a community centre

Narnia like pathway in the church yard....is there a wardrobe in those trees ?

View of Toddmorden from the church

Pollination Street - bee garden next to the market place.

some fine squash and courgettes i think.

go look at their website its full of great ideas and some exciting new growing adventures
www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website

Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

St Aidans Church, Kingston Upon Hull

 

 We thought this place would be a quick clear with the digger.  What we hadn't banked on was that many years ago someone replaced a concrete roof on part of the church and had dumped it on this area. So instead of just clearing a small pile of rubble visible, we had 2 foot deep of rubble across the whole site under the brambles.

 

 We had a good, if smaller team to do the clearing, but thats not so bad with a digger arm swinging round so often. We will probably fill 3 skips by the time we have cleared the back here. But the soil is good to a depth of about 4 inches, and the church are very excited about doing some collective growing, and serving some of it in their lovely and very popular cafe. More pics to follow, as this place is is so keen there will be plants in a matter of days :-D

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

St Michael's Youth Project Allotment Update

 Its been a long haul on this allotment plot, not only was it epically overgrown, but then even a power driven rotorvator could not claw up the boulder clay.  In the end we resorted to getting the digger in a again and after a long days work, the whole plot is turned over.

Sadly this place has pretty much the worst soil in Hull - well it has and inch of top soil, so we are doing minimal planting this year and very heavy manuring over teh winter to get next year off to a better start.   But we will pop some fruits, herbs and salads, and maybe some spuds if we can in all the same.

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

Bodmin Road Church, Bransholme, Kingston Upon Hull.

It was with some deep disapointment that a week on many of the plug plants had died, the french beans looking least happy. We think its due to cat urine, we have tried our best to revive some and will replace others.

Time waits for no man tho and so we carried on with bed number 2 and soon enough we had a good team of diggers again and by the end of teh session we had some squash and broccoli planted in it too, kindly donated by Food 360 in East Hull, as they had some spare.  They are a cool bunch check out their work too here. http://www.probeltd.co.uk/community/community/community/f360future.html

I

To make sure cats wont bother the plug plants this time we enlisted the help of spiderman, I guess he will scare off flies too :-)

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

Bodmin Road Church, Bransholme, Kingston Upon Hull

After a Session turning over the entire garden we started to prepare a bed and take all teh grass and weeds out. We also took out around 30 old clothes pegs, a dozen marbles, 3 toy cars a whole host of stuff.  Look at treasure corner to see some of the things we foun.

The soils as everywhere in Hull is heavy clay but with a donation of a compost bin full of well rotted compost the first bed took shape well, with the help of 9 volunteers aged from 7 to 40 something. We will dig the next 2 beds and then start on some road side verge the other side of the fence....te heee.

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

St Matthews Church Hall, Hull Youth For Christ, Boulevard, Kingston Upon Hull

It has taken a lot of very very hard work by a team of up to 10 people to get this place looking as it does now.  We had many dilemmas about what to do for growing space here.  The soil was so badly contaminated with broken glass, roof tiles, bitumen tar chunks and dozens of other more curious finds we feared we would have to replace all the top soil.

Some 50 man hours of work later, we are half way through sieving the entire top 6 inches of soil across the whole site.  During the process we have found 100 year old coins, an old car starter handle, a 1950s toy car, and many other treasures.  Please look at the post called 'Treasure Corner' to see some of the finds.

It turns out that once sieved, the soil is very good loam, if still with some tiny shards of glass, so we will do a finer grade sieve and add some beds with imported soil for root crops to be on the safe side.

We hope to be planting here in around 4 weeks time. Keep coming back to see.

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook

St John's Church and Community Centre, Rosemead Street, Kingston Upon Hull.

Work has now started at St Johns with a keen team of volunteers setting to work. Sadly we forgot our camera on the first day of digging so when we next pop in we promise a bumper crop of photos.

If you would like to help grow, or learn to grow here please get in touch.

Email us; iwant2livebetter@gmail.com or search@care4free.net
Call us on 01482 851008
Visit our website
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook