Standish Guerilla Gardeners

First day off in since I started. A family event so I can be let off I think.

Plus the nasty weather didn’t half hit me hard, who said you don’t get a cold from getting cold!!

Mid March and the temperature has plummeted, hail, snow and wind!!! Very cold indeed, needless to say a bit of Siberia hasn’t stopped progress.

Not a great deal to report this week and no photos (who wants to see it cold?) But with a further 1.5 panels cleared and the brambles and litter picking done for another week – I’ve made progress.

One thing I did uncover was a man hole cover (or person hole cover to be politically correct, although I doubt even the most radical feminist would insist on re-naming the man hole to a person hole. In my mind anyone who has the bottle to go down said drain, deserves to be called brave, irrespective of there sex. So perhaps we should rename them brave holes.) Anyway I was intrigued as to why and when this drain was put in place, it seems to be out of place somehow. It’s an old drain and to my knowledge no residences or works are close enough to use it – perhaps it indicates that there is a drain running all the way down The Line? If that’s the case maybe The Line had buildings along the way that required some form of drain? Who knows, answers on a post card please.

Back to the digging, I’ve moved a further three barrows of cinder further up The Line which is starting to make a dent in the really muddy bit. It’s rebuilding the footpath like this that gives you a real boost, because three barrows of cinder fills about 15 foot quite nicely, which is a nice chunk of work to look back on.

Once all the heavy work was complete I decided to build another process in to the weekly work – setting cuttings. It may be a little early but I’ve put them in the conservatory to see how they go. I figure if I do 6 pots of cuttings each week of dog wood, shrubby honeysuckle and climbing honeysuckle I’m sure somewhere along the line I’ll gain a few free plants. Well these plants grow around my house so they’re free so what the hell.

I’ve ready that birds and insects like shrubby honeysuckle and it looks very attractive all year round.

Anyhoo update next week!!!

Hey a great stint today – spring is in the air and the project is going to receive a cash donation!!! Still got to sort it out yet but the lady read the article in the local Life magazine and was inspired to donate £50 – wicked.

Well things are coming along very nicely and it seems that the three point plan of attack is working a treat. If anyone missed it (hah of course they did) it’s really simple.

• Turn over 1.5 panels removing the top surface and stacking it to rot down. Use exposed cinder to rebuild path
• Remove litter from area where you cut the brambles last week (the brambles will be easy to rake away and get to the litter)
• Cut down next weeks batch of brambles.

So all told I’m actually working on 4.5 panels each week and effectively working 2 weeks ahead of myself.
I hit a rich patch of cinder that was higher than the existing level so I’ve been able to patch areas further up the line, filling in some muddier areas so that they have become at least passable.

I reckon that in the next few weeks I could be up to actually filling the very worst spot which is at least 6 inches in mud. If I can fill this by summer it will mean The Line from where I started to the main road will be passable without jumping from dry spot to not quite so muddy spot. It will be the first time in 8 or so years (if not more) that this will be possible.

A bit of revelation on the wildlife front, even more lady birds who seem to love the new nettles that are begininng to flourish, I hope our many spotted friends will move to the new flowers in the spring! Here’s a picture of one, quite hard to photograph but at least this one’s smiling!

Plus there are actually loads and loads of seedlings!!

The seed I scattered earlier in the year are growing,

they’re still small and a long way to go yet before we get flowers but “they’re off” as they say.

So yeh, a good session three hours or so on a nice spring morning, no nasty rubbish just the same old cornucopia of crisp packets and beer bottles – but I have spotted something that looks decidedly like an old discarded lamp post!! Either that or it a forgotten rocket launcher!!! Who knows I’ll keep report back next week.

A new month and I move on with the hope of finer weather to come, but it is still very early in the year and the rain forecast didn’t look good so, undeterred I made an early start, even though the late night lunar eclipse experience has left me feeling a little tired.

Needless to say 8:45am on The Line and it’s a very different experience than the other few weeks. A very chill wind and the threat of rain on the horizon, no people encouraging you, not to mention the bramble roots are getting really hard work – sometimes it’s little lonely being the only guerrilla gardener in Standish (only one to my knowledge anyway).

I get a panel cleared and make up some of the path further up, clear out the bramble twigs and move the debris from the week before. The amount of rubbish buried under all those brambles is amazing, stuff going back years, tin cans that have turned to rust and plastic crisp bags that’ve lost almost all of their print – people (including me once) really don’t appreciate the impact rubbish has on the environment, it takes an age to disappear.

Anyway with one panel cleared I start to pick up the rubbish, clearing for next week. Raking first to loosen any broken glass that may be lurking, then I unearth a hypodermic needle, the full job!!! To say I was saddened was an understatement, I know these things go on and who knows how long it’s been there, but just chucked like that!!! Sad, really sad. Who knows how many more I’ll find? The rubbish was once some kind of strange adventure, what will I find next, something of value maybe, but (and ok I may be naïve) finding a needle puts a bit of a different slant on safety from here on in.

So lots and lots of raking first before picking litter will be the order of the day from here on in. It’s strange that although the brambles must have been a hiding place for all manner of wildlife, they have actually been a collection point for so much litter. The area that’s been cleared hasn’t got any litter around at all, I suppose it hasn’t got anything stopping it, if it’s blowing through and maybe even the most careless drug taker wouldn’t just lash a needle on open ground. But who knows?

Anyhow, the project has had a bit of publicity, an article in the local magazine (thanks to the guys at Standish Life magazine), let’s see if the publicity draws any other volunteers out of the woodwork. I’m quite surprised that I haven’t had any help from neighbours who know what I’m up to, not even half an hour. A very odd day really.

Total distance cleared to date approx 26 meters – which only leaves (from the stretch I want to cover – approx 266 meters. Looks like I’ve at least 12 months or so left to do before I get to the end of the track. Which means by next summer, we could all enjoy a nice walk along a path of wild flowers, and in winter be able to get to the village without being knee deep in mud.