Nature

May weather in Campbeltown Community Organic Garden was a very mixed bag with one or two really sunny days, lots of rain and wind and an early morning frost to contend with. This is where our walled, sloping, south-facing garden helps our efforts as it drains the excessive rain and provides some protection from the cold winds. The soil makes the most of the welcome appearance of our regular but brief breaks of sunshine.

Our garden produce is all growing well. In our deep beds the close planting will create my beloved 'mini-climate' under the vegetable canopy which inhibits the growth of weeds, making management of our garden a lot easier as well as giving greater vegetable yields. In the veg beds where a mini-climate cannot be achieved e.g. onions, leeks etc. we use a mulch of grass clippings, which we get from Auchinlee Eventide Home's handyman/gardener John (handy 'cos he lives near!) NB - no chemicals are used on their lawns.

John's grass clippings are also doing a fine job in the compost heaps (we do not use grass clippings in our wormeries as it gives off ammonia when breaking down, killing the worms) where we mix them with shredded paper (provided by Auchinlee and local business) and annual weeds (provided in abundance by nature). We have the obligatory three compost bins (to use, to fill, to mature). Our local recycler, Louise Robertson from GRAB, has invited myself and other garden volunteers to become 'Master Composters' with our community garden becoming a composting centre providing educational workshops.

Our French Lieutenent's gardener Loic carried out our first garden workshop (myself being his glamorous assistant!) on the 'principles of pruning'. I was pleased to see six new faces attending. We had a lively discussion with positive feedback with all signing up for Loic's next workshop 'taking cuttings'.

The workshop will be included in our 'Dirty Weekend', (7 June 1200 - 1600) which is under the BBC Springwatch and Breathing Places umbrella. We will be dragging people in so they can 'enjoy' working on creating wildlife habitats, paths and observation decking, water collection systems and clearing ground as well as 'taking cuttings'. We hope to have our Young Farmers popping in but realise they have to get the silage in, with the old addage 'make hay while the sun shines' still ringing true but sunny days are scarce at the moment.

Which brings us to our polytunnel, as you can see our youngest 'budding gardener' is busy sowing lettuce. We have completed our polytunnel's raised beds, filled them with manure, soil and compost with our automatic watering system cunningly modified to water all three separate raised beds.

Our three types of tomatoes are growing on well and flowering, the cucumbers and melons in one raised bed have established themselves following a worrying cold period which 'checked' them and our final two raised beds have been planted up by Paul, ,who, with his friend Owen, are helping out in our community garden as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award. Both young men have helped repair and revamp our vandalised wildlife garden and pond, plus helping to create and plant up our new soft fruit cage with three types of strawberries and two types of rasberries which are growing well in deeply dug soil with lots of well-rotted organic manure and compost plus a mulch of John's grass cuttings following a good watering in.

We are looking to build on from our successful April Open Day and are holding a 'Midsummer Garden Open Day' on Sunday June 21 1200 - 1600 with similar garden activities plus the addition of a children's entertainer.
The second date is Sunday September 20 1200 - 1600. We have been approached by Kintyre Civic Society to open our garden during their 'Doors Open' weekend. We feel 'chuffed' as this means we will appear in their national pamphlet plus an endorsment of our direction of development.