Forum:

urban gardening

Plot 5: a new urban Community garden

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

7
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

As of 1 Oct, our community food project has moved to a new plot on the same allotments site.

This is Plot 5 (previously we had a forest garden set-up on the west border, Plot 33A: https://permies.com/t/40/262302/Plot-community-forest-garden).

We have much the same aims:
Give our urban neighbours a chance to visit our beautiful site, the last part of the farmers field where our suburb was built;
Empower people to experience food growing for themselves;
Supply the local Black-Led Mutual Aid community (c. 100 people) with local fruit and vegetables: they can never get enough.

Here is our first photo, from when we were surveying the site on Thu 18 Sep 2025. This is an oversized, somewhat unfortunately sited, cherry tree of unknown quality (could be a bird cherry). We need to prune it sympathetically in May, I am told, and then wait for fruit in c. Jul.

2025-09-18-Plot-5.jpg

A large cherry tree with a shade tunnel behind it.

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

6
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

This new plot, Plot 5, is nearly twice the size of the old one, Plot 33A.

It is much sunnier, only being seriously shaded from the polewards North side.

It is much less prone to drought, being on the bank of the Grand Union Canal. Water drains this way, and pools outside the clay lining of the canal to the North.

The plot is laid out in four quarters: two sunside with the cherry tree in one; two canal side with the shade tunnel in one.

Trees: a tall row of mixed deciduous and conifer on the poleward/North/canal side (including a dead elm);
Two Coes Golden Drop small own-root plum (N side);
One Red Williams Pear dwarf grafted (N side);
One damson, East boundary, suckering into the veg bed;
One cherry, unknown, own root, overgrown on sun side.

Other plants: two gooseberry bushes, and two potential elm saplings.

The existing equipment includes:
An old tumbledown shed that needs emptying & dismantling;
A fairly stable new little shed with a few tools;
A reasonably sound shade tunnel with four beds & lined paths;
A decent waterbutt with inlet & outlet pipes;
Three tall growing frames e.g. for climbing beans, or squash.

Lots of potential! But lots to clear away under the canal side trees too.

I've started laying out beds in the clearer sun side quadrant.

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

One other benefit of this move: the allotments site intend to keep managing the old plot, 33A, for the community. It's so difficult to garden, due to both the sun and rain shadow from sycamore in the neighbouring house gardens, that it's likely to be the last plot chosen for new tenants.

Instead, the open beds will be used for propagating fruit e.g. grape, tayberry, damson etc.

So we don't completely lose it.

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

2
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Here is a view of Plot 5 from the SE (sunny) corner, looking NW. You can see the open area for vegetable growing, including a squash frame.

2025-09-Plot-5-Before.jpg

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 12191

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

6212

I like...

posted 3 months ago

3
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

First thoughts...
Nice that you've got some structures - that will give you a head start. Maybe the old shed would make sides for a compost area? Shade tunnel for leafy greens perhaps? Are you sure that is shade fabric though? It looks more like bird netting in the photo - might be more useful for protecting fruit bushes perhaps. I've been pleased how many more blueberries I achieved when the birds weren't taking more than their share!
Lots of material for mulch standing dead. Teasels could be a nuisance weed, but the birds love them.
The A frame looks great, but I wonder whether it could so with some end braces to stop it lozenging. Are the legs dug in securely?

I hard pollarded one of my bird cherries last year and it has come back strongly. The reason to prune in summer is that the trees can shrug off some diseases like sliverleaf more easily whilst in growth, but sometimes a one off winter prune is appropriate.

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

From the school of "you can make chutney with almost any fruit or veg", rather yummy grape, apple & star anise chutney made from the thinings, under-ripe & blemished fruit left over from the Community Mutual Aid.

2025-10-Grape-Apple-Star-Anise-chutney.jpg

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

3
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Nancy Reading wrote:Nice that you've got some structures - that will give you a head start.

Indeed, definitely a "selling point" for me & the umbrella group too.

Nancy Reading wrote:Maybe the old shed would make sides for a compost area?

Oh, good thought!

Nancy Reading wrote: Shade tunnel for leafy greens perhaps? Are you sure that is shade fabric though? It looks more like bird netting in the photo - might be more useful for protecting fruit bushes perhaps. I've been pleased how many more blueberries I achieved when the birds weren't taking more than their share!

More good points. But we have so many pigeons, the brassicas need protection from them too. It's a fine enough net to keep off cabbage white butterflies, not sure about white fly though. In fact, it keeps off some of the wind too, definitely feels slightly more sheltered & a touch warmer in there now we're in Autumn. So, given the net also has a fair optical cover factor, I think it has some useful shading properties. So brassicas will be one of the crops we try this coming year, anyhow.

Nancy Reading wrote:Lots of material for mulch standing dead. Teasels could be a nuisance weed, but the birds love them.

Yes, yes, and yes, I love teasels as eye-catching plants too.

Nancy Reading wrote:The A frame looks great, but I wonder whether it could so with some end braces to stop it lozenging. Are the legs dug in securely?

It seems fairly secure, as it carries some fairly big squashed two summers ago. But definitely worth further investigation.

Nancy Reading wrote:I hard pollarded one of my bird cherries last year and it has come back strongly. The reason to prune in summer is that the trees can shrug off some diseases like sliverleaf more easily whilst in growth, but sometimes a one off winter prune is appropriate.

Ah, interesting I will explore further with the site secretary, who is our expect in top fruit. They might panic if I "lollypopped" it before May .. good to keep the site secretary happy!

Many thanks!

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Riona Abhainn

pollinator

Posts: 1353

Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b

158

posted 3 months ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Congrats AC on getting the new bigger plot!

Celtic/fantasy/folk/shanty singing at Renaissance faires, fantasy festivals, and other events in OR and WA, USA.
RionaTheSinger on youtube.
Pop-up garden/vintage+ yard stand owner.

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

We are slowly making progress: our hardy overwintering broad beans have their first leaves up!

An enthusiastic neighbour was finally able to come & help out last weekend, someone who is very keen to learn more about gardening, and already has a lot of useful trades skills. Hopefully they'll be able to help again this weekend too.

One of the other allotment holders is going to replace their small polytunnel cover this weekend, because it was a zipped design and the zips have gone. But it will fit nicely over the frame of our mesh/shade structure on the community plot. So we might well be able to upgrade ours to a winter growing area for free!

We have obtained magic beans (see picture). Nearly a year ago, a friend donated a huge box of seeds to the project, mostly within a few years of being 'in date'. With some trouble due to the drought in England this summer, we grew out about a dozen runner bean (multiflora) plants which seem to be starting to mature viable seeds thanks to our mild Autumn.

Now I've learned that you can overwinter runner beans if you're careful & lucky, because they make tubers!! As per this thread: https://permies.com/t/56740/ways-runner-bean-tubers-overwinter I have what I need to try this three-way experiment - home-saved seed, overwintered in situ, overwintered in pots & replanted.

Runner beans are quite a popular vegetable around here, where the immature pods are sliced & lightly cooked. So if we can raise more plants by overwintering, this could be really valuable for our community food project which always struggles to have enough fresh vegetables. Watch this space!

2025-10-Runner-Bean-seeds.jpeg

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

7
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

A very good day today. Our first "graduate" of the Community Plot, who is renting their own allotment plot for the first time ever this Autumn, came with their neighbour. I was there with my wonderful partner D (life & gardening).

We all had a cracking "gardening party".

As it's unseasonably mild still, our runner bean plants are still lush & green. So we transplanted some of the volunteer strawberries from around them, and started the process of mulching them with (green) nettles & various straw.

Then we reviewed the progress so far on the new Community Plot, and transplanted a cherry sucker out of the vegetable beds there.

D edited the volunteer plants around our red summer raspberries on our personal plot (knocking back the creeping grass & bindweed, both of which can get smothering if unedited).

The rest of us worked on clearing the volunteer plants in the new plotholders plot, including golden plum suckers. These I've heeled in on the old community plot, by agreement with the site secretary.

Perennials growing in the new personal plot include golden plums, a cooking apple tree, gooseberries, variagated sage, raspberries (unknown type), lavender, and other herbs too. So the new plot-holder was able to take home the last of the lavender flowers.

Also, another allotment holder has a glut of eating apples which they've donated to the community. We've already send 100 of the best, ripe biggest ones to the Black-led Mutual Aid. So the remainders we picked over on the tree today. Our two volunteer people went home with a bag each of unblemished apples, and another of windfalls.

They were so happy! And even the forecast rain stayed away.

Just a wonderful afternoon.

And we hope to be able to reconvene tomorrow, and do more. This is what it's all about!

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 12191

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

6212

I like...

posted 3 months ago

Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I love that you're raising gardeners as well as plants! Good days

We've had a couple of mild frosts this week, par for the time of year....

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 3 months ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Yes! Giving more people the chance to try food gardening is one of the big 'selling points' for the project with the Allotments Committee and our local climate change group who are supporting us too.

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Riona Abhainn

pollinator

Posts: 1353

Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b

158

posted 3 months ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Glad you scored bounty to share forward, and that winter protection too in the hopes of the beans continuing to produce.

Celtic/fantasy/folk/shanty singing at Renaissance faires, fantasy festivals, and other events in OR and WA, USA.
RionaTheSinger on youtube.
Pop-up garden/vintage+ yard stand owner.

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 2 months ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Still no sign of frost, which is getting relatively late for the Midlands of England. Outdoor tomatoes and runner beans still quite green, and the toms are still flowering.

We have also been gifted a one year old 'mini polytunnel" cover, that's almost like a frame-tent with four hitches for guy ropes. All that's wrong with it is that the two zips on the door flap have gone. We have a plastic tube frame the previous plot-holders constructed as a net tunnel, which is almost exactly the right size for the polytunnel cover. So our wonderful volunteer C is offering to help us convert the net tunnel into a polytunnel. Watch this space!

C is also offering to make plant labels, to help other people who are learning to identify vegetables, green manures, and other beneficial plants. Go, C!

I must remember to take some photographs next time it's sunny!

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 2 months ago

5
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Here's the folded 'tent' polytunnel cover we've been gifted ..

2025-11-09-Polytunnel-cover.jpg

Folded polytunnel cover, with windows visible

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Riona Abhainn

pollinator

Posts: 1353

Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b

158

posted 2 months ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

We haven't had our first frost yet either, we're late as well. Calendula still blooming in my yard.

Celtic/fantasy/folk/shanty singing at Renaissance faires, fantasy festivals, and other events in OR and WA, USA.
RionaTheSinger on youtube.
Pop-up garden/vintage+ yard stand owner.

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 2 months ago

4
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Frost finally arrived about ten days ago. We've moved the half-hardy fuscias in pots into the community plot shed.

Another lovely donation has arrived, this time from someone who has been contracting for our local Council for decades to tend the gardens around tower blocks, whom I shall call P. I was lucky enough to be there when P as passing the site gates, and stopped to ask if anyone still wanted free, clean autumn leaves, as the people to whom P used to deliver them had sadly passed away of old age.

Here is our roughly 6 m3 heap, which we're using to winterise our vegetable beds. And P may have one more load before the end of the season which we can baggsy!

Heap of mostly oak, but with some sycamore and possibly common lime, leaves.

2025-11-22-Heap-of-Autumn-leaves.jpg

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Nancy Reading

steward and tree herder

Posts: 12191

Location: Isle of Skye, Scotland. Nearly 70 inches rain a year

6212

I like...

posted 2 months ago

2
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

Ac Baker wrote: Heap of mostly oak, but with some sycamore and possibly common lime, leaves.

Yay for leaf mulch!

The oak and sycamore will take a long time to rot down, but the lime is fairly quick, so a good mix there - what a great winter mulch for your beds, excellent win!

How Permies works: https://permies.com/wiki/34193/permies-works-links-threads
My projects on Skye: The tree field, Growing and landracing, perennial polycultures, "Don't dream it - be it! "

Riona Abhainn

pollinator

Posts: 1353

Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b

158

posted 2 months ago

2
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

AC, I love your community and yet similtamiously global mindedness.

Celtic/fantasy/folk/shanty singing at Renaissance faires, fantasy festivals, and other events in OR and WA, USA.
RionaTheSinger on youtube.
Pop-up garden/vintage+ yard stand owner.

Ac Baker

pioneer

Posts: 348

I like...

posted 2 weeks ago

2
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

We have been plugging away whilst I've not been posting. I've been dealing with a new diagnosis of IBS-D and learning how to eat again! Our graduate, E has been making great progress on their new personal plot.

Better still, three of E's school-age children (c. 5, 9 & 14) are very excited & getting involved. Community Garden: The Next Generation is a go (technically I am old enough to be a grandparent to those children!).

As Robin Wall Kimmerer wrote this week, "The natural world is full of examples of intergenerational support, from mature trees sharing nutrients with shaded saplings in the forest to nurse plants in the desert sheltering seedlings."

Youth & Elders Planting Side-by-Side: intergenerational accountability.
https://mailchi.mp/plantbabyplant/youth-and-elders-planting-side-by-side

We've continued to get a lot of support, including C helping build our compost reserves, E helping with mulching, D helping with everything,and local shopkeepers & places of worship contributing too.

We've cut another hazel coppice .. well, too big & branched to be a pole .. to use as a support for the site grapevine. Hopefully this will increase the sweetness of the fruit by catching more sun.

We've set up the first of the brassica beds in our netting tunnel. I'm pretty certain it's repurposed builders netting, in fact. But we desperately need to keep the pigeons off the brassicas, so that works for me.

The perennial kale from N on Skye, possibly a Taunton Deane kale I think? It will need pollarding in a couple of years time, as it would outgrow the tunnel by up to a metre otherwise.

2026-01-17-New-Brassica-Bed.jpg

New brassicas bed, topped with mature compost. One perennial kale, one overwintering cabbage transplanted so far.

--
"Whitewashed Hope: A Message from 10+ Indigenous Leaders and Organizations"
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/news/whitewashed-hope-message-10-indigenous-leaders-and-organizations

Riona Abhainn

pollinator

Posts: 1353

Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b

158

posted 1 week ago

2
Number of slices to send:

Optional 'thank-you' note:

Send

I love how everyone is working together on this garden plot!

Celtic/fantasy/folk/shanty singing at Renaissance faires, fantasy festivals, and other events in OR and WA, USA.
RionaTheSinger on youtube.
Pop-up garden/vintage+ yard stand owner.

sunglasses are a type of coolness prosthetic. Check out the sunglasses on this tiny ad:

Free Seed Starting Webinar Weds Feb 4, 3PM PST / 6PM EST

https://ortakitchengarden.com/pages/permies-seed-class-landing