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.