Hi All,

Welcome to our corner of this world. I am new to this blogging, so hopefully it will make interesting reading and records some of the fun & activity we have & do in our gardens. Well I better introduce myself. I am Lee and I am part of the Ploughlands Community Gardens Team. I'm a lorry driver with no gardening experience, so I have been learning things as I go, also no one else in the team has any formal gardening training.  The other main team members are Yan and Edna.

If you have a look at our website, linked in the first blog, you will get a idea of what we have been doing up till now. I'm sure you're all eager to hear what we have been up to today. Today, we have been collecting seeds ready next season, it's amazing how many seeds there are on marigolds. We are hoping to grow lots of marigolds next year to be able to do some block planting. This is our first year with a greenhouse (Donated by Easthampstead Baptist Church), so we have been lining bubble wrap inside to help protect from the cold & frost. We have looked at heaters for extra heating, but paraffin is £6.99 a gallon now & electric heaters are meant to be much more economical, however, that would mean needing to get power to the greenhouse.

It all starts looking quite sad this time of year, so we have been tiding up and removing old bedding plants which have now finished. The tomatoes have also finished now, so I have picked the last of them and composted the old vines, also I removed the old plants from the veg patch and sowed some green manure seeds from johnsons, hopefully this will make the soil good for next year. We also picked lots of apples to give to the neighbours. 

On 21st Sep 2011, we were awarded a 'outstanding' award from the 'RHS - It's Your Neighbourhood'  scheme. This is their highest award & we will receive the certificate tomorrow evening, when we are going to South Hill Park for the Bracknell in Bloom 'Its Your Garden' awards, in which we entered in the community gardens category. We have high hopes as we were part of the tour of Bracknell, when Bracknell Town Council were awarded the Gold award, and everyone seemed to be very impressed with what we had been doing & achieved this year in the gardens. Well, fingers crossed, I will let you know how we do as soon as I can, so stay posted.

Lee
He Who Plants A Garden,
Plants Happiness.



Stephanie Eynon of RHS presents Wendy Smith of Bracknell Forest Homes
 and Anne McKay of Bracknell Town Council.