Back story: we are building a community garden on an industrial site in Newtown Powys. The unit we are connected to composts food waste from the local community, so we have lots of good soil improver, which is certainly needed as it is a very run down compacted site with no topsoil! Our vision is to create a beautiful and very productive garden, following permaculture principles and to use only donted labour and materials to do it. If we can do it here we can do it anywhere…..
Well we are thrilled ot hear that our grant application with Environment Wales has been successful, it gives us some capital resources to invest in the garden. Paths, a shelter, rainwater harvesting and plants for starters. I am still new to this project so I dont want to go blundering in with too many ideas, but it also seems like time is the essence and we need to be progressing the project every week – seeing as the opportunity I have to work there runs out at the end of September – so if we are to get funding to keep me on there, we need to make some things happen.
Artists impression of the garden in Newtown, by Mark
A lot of creative thought went into the garden project on the Permaculture Design Course, with participants coming up with lots of great ideas of how to develop the project. Key to it all is the need to create a people space in the garden, a shelter, tea room and tool store, so that we can work there without being too dependent on access to the industrial unit itself, to create a functional garden zone. Gardens are places where people and plants come together, so we need to create some people habitat to compliment all the polytunnels and raised beds.
The first of the mirco allotment garden clubs is planned to begin next week, on Wednesday afternoon and the whole garden is already coming to life after lots of hard work by garden volunteers and project staff.
Sketch of the garden refuge hut idea
The idea is to build something organic, out of wood and mud with a living roof, that is striking and generates interest in teh garden. Also the process of building it will reguire lots of volunteer input, so a chance for lots of people to get involved and be part of the garde project. So hoepfully it will put us on the map, get us noticed and in the local press, create something really useful as well as fun and create a focal point for the whole project.
Credit to Mark and his PDC gesign group for these lovely sketches.
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