Category Archives: gardening

Orchard Workshops: Learn to make a Pea cone: Sunday, 29th June

The first in a short series of 

WORKSHOPS AT DONKEYFIELD ORCHARD 

Daiches Brae, near Brunstane Station

Pea cone workshop with Anna Leibmann

Sunday, 29th June 11 – 3pm, £30 (there are a few con­ces­sion­ary places, please con­tact us for details)

Learn to make a beau­ti­ful wil­low pea cone to sup­port your peas, or oth­er climb­ing plants. All mater­i­als provided, but bring your own lunch.

Please book by June 22nd. Contact Eve:
eve@pedal-porty.org.uk or 07724 825 434

Electric Bungalow Community Garden

NOTE FROM BATH STREET COMMUNITY GARDEN

Members of the Electric Bungalow Community Garden would like to thank the wider com­munity in Portobello for all their sup­port and encour­age­ment after the garden on Bath Street was bull­dozed last Thursday.

bath st memorial

Please feel free to drop by and add some­thing (per­haps draw a flower on the pave­ment, weave cloth or wool into the fence) to add to our memori­al just outside.

The group is con­sid­er­ing our next steps and will post plans on the face­book group and the PEDAL web­site in due course.

PEDAL ‘Street Level’ — make it happen on your street!

PEDAL ‘STREET LEVEL’ NEEDS YOU TO
“DO GOOD STUFF ON YOUR STREET”

Would you love to have a street party on your street — but nev­er got round to mak­ing it hap­pen? Or do you think car-shar­ing with a few people who live close by would make sense, but you’re not sure how to go about it? Maybe you think it’s crazy that 10 people in your street have a lawn mower, when you could all just use the same one?

If so, Street Level may be for you.

It’s not com­plic­ated – just the chance to bring togeth­er a bunch of people who’d like to start some­thing good on their street — so they can share a bit of mor­al and prac­tical sup­port. Let’s get togeth­er, share ideas and resources and sup­port one anoth­er to make good things hap­pen on our streets.

The kinds of things we might do are:

Organise street parties

Join Streetbank

Get on-street bike storage

Start com­munity gardens

Build on-street planters/trees

Make or com­mis­sion pub­lic art

Share chick­ens

Start food/solar/insulation co-ops…

… stuff like that.

If you’re inter­ested, email info@pedalporty.org or call Eva

Apple Festival, 12 – 4pm, 6th October at the Botanics

Apple Festival

From 12.00 noon — 4.00 pm at the John Hope Gateway

An annu­al cel­eb­ra­tion of apples. The Saturday will fea­ture apple advice and iden­ti­fic­a­tion from 10am whilst the Sunday will include apple juice tast­ing. See and taste a wide selec­tion of apple vari­et­ies from 12pm both days, and find out how to grow them yourself.

This event is also run­ning from 10am — 4pm on Saturday 5 October.

With the Royal Caledonian Horticultural Society.

Midmar Allotments Open Day: 2 – 5pm, Saturday 24th August

Please come and look around our award-win­ning site; relax in Midmar Café and enjoy deli­cious home bak­ing and refresh­ments whilst tak­ing in the beau­ti­ful views of Edinburgh. Fresh allot­ment pro­duce, flowers, jams and pre­serves avail­able. Try your luck in the tombola.

Open from 2 – 5pm

Saturday 24th August

Entry via two gates on Midmar Drive in South Edinburgh, EH10 6BU

Orchard is waking up

applesGreetings from the Orchard. This is an update on the orch­ard going  to all those who have been along to help since the first shovel of earth was dug in 2009. We had our first work­day of 2012 on the last Saturday in February 2012. It was warm, the cro­cuses were out and the bees were ven­tur­ing out from the hive.

We were able to start put­ting up the wires for the fruit trees against the large stone wall. Nearly fin­ished the wooden fur­niture. We build anoth­er sec­tion of the dry stone wall and checked all the labels on the fruit trees. Sadly we also cut down the old apple tree which died last sea­son. We also drank tea and cof­fee and ate bis­cuits and looked at what we all achieved last year.

Here are some of the things that happened at the orch­ard in 2011.

  • We planted 50 trees and bushes
  • We star­ted build­ing a low dry stone­wall along the path
  • We put in a table and two benches
  • The bee keep­ers got to work. The hive was put in place and the bees made honey
  • We had a won­der­ful Apple Day atten­ded by 50 people and made a huge amount of apple juice
  • We con­tin­ued the work of keep­ing the trees free from weeds and strimmed the area
  • Sadly the shed was broken into and some of the apples disappeared
  • It rained too much but luck­ily not on workdays.
  • We had our Wassailing cel­eb­ra­tion on a crisp Saturday morn­ing in January

We were able to to as much as we did because of money from the Climate Challenge Fund to pay for trees etc. We also had paid work­ers but sadly they fin­ished in early spring. We have used up the grant money for trees & tools but a great deal has been achieved.  Most import­ant has been the volun­teers and vis­it­ors. It is the com­munity who make hap­pen with the help from moth­er nature. So thanks to all who helped in 2011.  We are look­ing for­ward to the year ahead and please come and join in whatever way you can.

Our first job on our next Workday  Saturday 31st March will be to put up the sup­ports for the apple tun­nel and plant the trees. Further workdays:

  • Saturday 28th April
  • Saturday 26th May
  • Saturday 30th June
  • Saturday 28th July
  • Saturday 25th August
  • Saturday 29th Sept
  • Saturday 27th October
  • Saturday 24th November

If you want to know more ring: Mary Jane Elton 669 5129  or  Diana Cairns 669 4981

Introduction to Organic Vegetable Gardening, Bridgend Allotments, Edinburgh

This intro­duct­ory course will give you a ground­ing in all you need to know to start grow­ing your own food. Sundays over 8 weeks (25 March — 13 May), or over two full days (10 and 17 June). £60/45. Contact Chris 0131 664 9559 or chrism.bgc@gmail.com.

Donkeyfield Community Orchard Apple Day and Hallowe’en Party

apple day poster 2011Sat 29th October 2 – 4pm

All wel­come!

  • Apple crush­ing and press­ing – bring apples and bottles to take home some juice
  • Apple dook­ing and oth­er games
  • Bring home bak­ing to share
  • Fancy dress

If you have any apples that we could col­lect to juice please con­tact Diana as soon as possible.

Many thanks – we hope to see you there.

Donkeyfield Community Orchard is at Brunstane Road South, Gilberstoun, just oppos­ite Brunstane station.

Poster for Apple Day 2011 to down­load and print out.

 

Lovely video from Bath of turning an ex-flowerbed into a veggie patch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QdJ-vYaWug

An Introduction to Organic Vegetable Gardening

Bridgend Growing Communities

Interested in grow­ing your own fruit and veget­ables? Not sure where to begin? This intro­duct­ory course at the Bridgend Allotments will give you a ground­ing in all you need to know to start grow­ing your own food. Continue read­ing