Community Gardening

Spent a couple of cold (I know, I should have been digging) hours at Bagenalstown Community Garden this morning with this year's intake of horticulture students from CCFE who gave their time to help move things along.

The garden's being set up by the Family Resource Centre and it's moving along swiftly now thanks to the enthusiasm of Conor Jordan, their project manager.  Initially the garden was targetting unemployed men but it's now been opened up to all who want to get involved.

They have an extremely limited budget so any help and donations are being gratefully recieved.  That's where the horticultural students came in today.  Before I left at lunchtime Conor and their class tutor John O'Connor had arranged for the volunteers to lay down 100m of weed membrane between the raised beds and cover it with wood bark mulch.  They also prepared the trenches ready for the bare rooted fruit trees that Conor hopes to get planted as espalliers along the fence in a month or so's time.  This has saved the community gardeners a huge amount of work just before the weather breaks and means that the area will stay clean for them.

There's still lots of work to do over the coming months but a big thank you to everyone involved today.