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This task was a partnership between Nurturing Nature, the Liverpool Lighthouse Project, Arena Housing and Warrington Borough Council. After finding a suitable piece of land, which just happened to be a disused lawn at the rear of a confidential place of safety housing complex. We set about measuring and deciding how many beds we wished to make.
Other than being cut, this lawn was not put to good use!
The students, all attendees of the Lighthouse Project made the wooden raised beds themselves. Something that they really relished, some never having used tools since they attended wood work lessons at school!
You can use the saw now!
All the wooden raised beds were measured and cut to size by the students themselves. The small garden wall made a good substitute for a workbench, coffee table and seating for the inevitable ‘fag’ break!!
That’s about right mate!
Last minute checking and debate amongst these students whilst the others were making a brew and making a compost bin.
yea, that looks OK to me
The heart of every organic garden is the compost heap. This is a New Zealand compost bin, used to compost the home’s cardboard boxes, shredded waste paper and tea bags!
New Zealand Compost Bin, the heart of organic gardening
The beds were screwed together and filled with good quality composted organic matter, almost 15 tons from a nearby fruit and vegetable market.
Screwed together, laid on lawn and filled with good quality compost
Now what was needed was to cut and lay down a weed suppressant material and cover it with wood chips for decorative purposes.
Wood chips from locally cut trees compliment the wooden beds
Crops already growing in the beds whilst the finishing touches are put to the paths.
More wood chips to finish off the paths
The composted fruit, vegetable and wood chips is very course material. Excellent for some crops that are fine growing in such a medium.
Very course composted waste fine for some crops
Though with a little elbow grease, shaking and riddling…….
Riddling out the courser material..
You end up with a fine structured seed bed ideal for many crops that grow from small seeds…..
Smoothing out the compost to produce a flat even surface
all that hard work produces a fine seed bed
Not all of the beds need riddling in their first year, dependent upon what crops you are growing. This work is rather hard but ever so satisfying when you see the end result.
Happy, healthy crops growing on what was once a lawn!
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