Lochend Community Growing Project

What a fantastic workday we had on Saturday! Thanks to everybody who helped with:
* Weeding the orchard and pavement next to the orchard
* Turning the compost
* Making comfry fertiliser
* Painting the fascia boards to go back on the shed
* Watering the mushroom beds and moving our shiitake logs to their home after a soak.
* Weeding the paths
* Weeding the forrest garden (we get a lot of weeds!)
* A tip run to get rid of the old shed roof skylights (they were too brittle and broken to re-use sadly, we re-use everything we can).
* Cooking hot dogs for our break!
It was a really productive day and great company.

This year we're celebrating our 15th birthday with a garden party on Saturday 11th July (changed from 18th July).

Look at our new shed roof! 🤩
The old roof had served us well for 15 years but was past it's best, especially after Storm Eowyn.
Thanks to the Community Grants Fund, Cut Price Timber in Haddington, a huge amount of research and planning by our chairperson Penny and a bit of 💪 , our shed roof has now been completely replaced with more sturdy materials to withstand Edinburgh's windy weather.
Tomorrow (Sat 13th June) we have a volunteering day in the garden and orchard 11am-3pm. Free food and drink for all volunteers. No experience needed. If you're free tomorrow do pop in, pull up your sleeves, fill your belly and admire our awesome new roof!

Huge thank you to Marco from Rhyze Mushrooms who delivered a fantastic mushroom growing workshop to some of our members on Saturday. 🍄
* We started by learning about funghi ecology and the benefits to growing mushrooms in your garden.
* Next we drilled holes in freshly cut oak logs and hammered in dowels containing shiitake spawn.
* Following a quick lunch break we filled containers with oyster mushroom spawn and pasteurized straw to take home.
* Finally we dug various sites around the garden and layered woodchip with either oyster mushroom or wine cap mushroom spawn.
It was a brilliant day. Thank you again to Marco and thank you to the OneCityTrust for funding the workshop.

Today our roof on the shed is being repaired ,

We still have a few raised beds available for this year.
Membership costs just £25 for the year! We apply for community grants to put on all our events.
No experience needed.
Email us at [email protected] if you're interested in joining or pop by.
Membership includes:
🌱 Your own raised bed for growing veggies or herbs or flowers.
🌱Access to the polytunnel for growing seedlings.
🏡 Access to the shed with hand tools to borrow so you don't need to buy any of your own.
🍅A share in the communal produce from the garden and polytunnel including tomatoes, cucumbers, strawberries, apples, plums, herbs, artichokes, raspberries, rhubarb, herbs.
☀️ Fresh air, sunshine, excercise and new friends!
🌱Option to join our members-only whatsapp group.
🌱First invite to our free social events, workshops and other events like foraging, yoga etc.

It's been a lovely sunny weekend and folks have been in the garden preparing their beds for the season ahead. This cheeky chappy kept me company while I was weeding my bed.

We now have a few raised beds available for this year and now is the perfect time to start planting seeds. Don't worry if you have no experience, I didn't when I joined 3 years ago. And there's no need to buy any tools as we provide them. Membership costs just £25 per year and the only cost on top of that is for seeds (which are very reasonable at places like Lidl or the Range). If you're interested in becoming a member pop down to visit us at the weekend or email us at [email protected]

Thank you to the wonderful Community Engagement team at Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh who gave some of our members a tour of the nearly completed Palm House. It looked so beautiful in the glorious sunshine. We can't wait to visit again when the refurb is finished later this year.