Planning for planting

I’ve spent the last couple of days planning for a new community garden in Roslin with other volunteers. I’ve visited a nearby community garden, helped to fill a couple of planters in the village, and have even started work on the Roslin Community Garden website. It has been a rather “social” couple of days and a little overwhelming given the slow pace at which I’ve been working to re-join society.

The first of my activities was a (socially distanced) visit to the Midlothian Community Hospital Garden in Bonnyrigg. The garden is less than 6 miles from my cottage, so I walked there with a stop at the Lasswade Old Kirk to explore for a bit (and to enjoy a quick snack). At the garden, I met with two other volunteers from the Roslin garden, and one of the Bonnyrigg volunteers showed us around the site. It was great to see what a “mature” community garden can look like, as they’ve been at it for nearly 10 years now, and I can only hope that our garden takes a similar shape in a decade’s time!

Then yesterday, I met with some of the Roslin Community Garden volunteers for (socially-distanced) planting in the village. We have permission to put barrel planters in a little pocket garden at the corner of Main Street and Station Road, and yesterday’s task was to plant two of them. The planters are old whisky barrels that we situated on either side of the community notice board, with the hope that people will enjoy the plants as they read the notices. And, of course, we are hoping that they will feel motivated to join us for future garden activities!

In between planning and planting, I have been working on a new website for the Roslin Community Garden. I didn’t get as much done this past week as I had hoped, but I have a plan! Now, I just need to implement the plan. When it’s done, the website will have information about the garden (and our plans for starting the garden) along with different projects we’re working on (like this one). We will also include updates about our various activities and events. I am happy to hear thoughts on the kind of things others would want to see on a community garden website, too. So, get in touch if you have suggestions!

I am really looking forward to working with the community garden and can’t wait to see it all take shape. I will be sure to share stories and photos of the progress here! (And I will share even more stories and photos on the new site when it’s up and running.)

2 Replies to “Planning for planting”

  1. On a community garden site, I would find it helpful if there was a “plot map” of what’s been planted & where, so I could look at the garden before deciding what I wanted to add or contribute to.

    1. That’s a great idea! We are still determining where the full garden will go. In the meantime, we are doing some smaller garden spaces around the village. We have planting sketches for that one that I will add to the RCG site this week.

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