Volunteer day at the Empty Common Community Garden

On the 15th of July, a local company sent volunteers to the garden; a lot was completed on the day!

Relocation of wild garlic

Wild garlic was relocated into the shaded bed near the compost toilet and some pendulous sedge was planted to replace the garlic. Charlotte thinks the garlic will be a good ground cover for the bed.

The creation of the hazel barrier

A hazel barrier was made, in order to prevent people cutting through our bike rack area. We want to plant a ground cover plant there, such as ivy.

Windows were sanded and painted for the meeting hut and panels were made from pallets to cover our wood storage space, so we can lock it up.

     As well as this, some of the volunteers dug a drainage trench around the base of the meeting hut. This was filled with hardcore, followed by gravel. 

Finally, a wildlife wood pile was created for ground beetles and hopefully stag beetles too! Stag beetles are found in the southern area of England, especially around woodland areas. However, they are also sometimes found in gardens that have a lot of trees.

The group of excellent volunteers

    We are definitely all impressed by the group's hard work.

The annual Transition party and a walk into our garden!

Last Sunday, Transition Cambridge hosted their annual party at the Empty Common. But first, here's a look into Michela's perspective of a walk around the garden, a few hours before the party.

One of the two wonderful entries to the garden...

From left to right: the flag looking as magnificent as ever, the ECCG-carved wood, the polytunnel.

Our very own pond (I wonder who lives inside!)

Rebecca (a volunteer taking part in the Duke of Edinburgh award) near some of the beds.

Just around an hour before the party, with much collaborative effort, bunting was attached all around the garden.

(The right-side entrance. Some tree climbing was involved to put this part up!)

At this stage, it may have been fairly empty (other than those who helped set-up)...

...but the party itself was certainly not!

This blog was written by Michela (who is currently participating in the Duke of Edinburgh bronze award).

Summer is nearly here!

 Replacement of the leaky flat roof...

Our leaky old flat roof on the black shed has now been replaced with a new, sloped green roof. Just like when the much-needed dustbin lids for our rhubarb forcing bins turned up on the towpath exactly when needed, green roof sedums were found dumped on a piece of land just when the roof was ready to plant. 

...with a new, sloped green roof!

Firstly, we covered the roof with a pond liner, followed by the addition of soil (vermiculite mix). The third picture below shows the green plants, transported in the van to the final destination: our garden!

We also put up a bird box at the back of the black shed, facing into the hedge, so fingers crossed for a load of healthy chicks to go with our bee cocoons in the bee home on the side of the shed. 

Our bee harvest this year was 43 healthy mason bees, 16 unknown cocoons (see the picture below), four resin bees and seven straws full of bees, which cannot be seen, but some have used mud and some resin. It will be interesting to see if they emerge well...

It looks like there may be two types of mason bee in the wooden blocks, as some tubes had smaller cocoons than others; Charlotte thinks the unknown cocoons might be some sort of parasitic wasp.

This is the first year we have had resin bees in our bee home and we're sad to say that when the straws were removed, the four resin bee nests in the wooden block broke. They were also stuck and the little pupae inside are very delicate. 

If we have any next year, we will just leave them in situ. Luckily, we seem to have more resin bees in the straws we put in some of the tubes. The resin bees use tree sap for making their nests and seem to overwinter in the form of a softish pupae, whereas the mason bees overwinter as dormant adult bees inside their cocoons, which are pretty strong. Here's hoping we have another good harvest next year. 

                                                                     

This blog post was created by Michela, who is currently participating in the Duke of Edinburgh - bronze award.

Busy times at the Empty Common Community Garden

 

Lovely time at ECCG - a busy, enterprising Sunday for our volunteers. We moved materials for the shed, edged and weeded beds, we split up over-planted pots, did some watering and more besides! Rebecca took these lovely photos, showing the Community Garden in all its spring glory!

Ben gave us a brief lesson in flower arranging using blooms and greenery from the Garden - a thoughtful gift for an ECCG friend who is still shielding and unable to visit. It made a handsome arrangement for 'the table' as we ate our noodles!

Welcome to Spring: bike racks and garden edges

 

We now have bike racks at both entrances to the garden, thankfully clearing the garden of our Sunday bikes clutter when they were perched in various places. The racks near our new mulch depot (that Charlotte built from Ian's old decking, pictured below) are looking a bit stark, but will hopefully blend in when the grass grows back - they may get painted too to help them disappear in the background. 

The racks near the kissing gate (pictured above) have been planted around with Pendulous Sedge (Carex pendula), which loves growing in our garden. In time this should enclose the area nicely, taking off the hardness of the bike racks, kissing gate and bridge behind.  

Ben and Didier covered the ground with cardboard layers and then woodchips in the hopes of getting rid of the nettles and dock there. Once clear, we can try to encourage ivy to make a natural, tough and low-growing ground cover. Ben has also been industriously transplanting the pendulous sedges from within our woodland area to the edges to enclose what will be our wild woodland area. 

Pendulous sedge is evergreen and bushy, it grows to a height and width of one metre with its flowering stalks growing another half meter above. This sedge should therefore create a thick, low, evergreen hedge of sedge around the edge! 

A useful saying to distinguish your edges 

This saying isn't 100% true for all species, but is a pretty good bet for distinguishing rushes, sedges and grasses from each other by looking at their flowering stalks: Sedges have edges, rushes are round and grasses are hollow right up from the ground.

It's all about birds at ECCG

At the end of January, Nicola did the bird count alone, due to Covid-19 restrictions, and this is what she found:

• Robin 3
• bluetit 5
• magpie 2
• woodpigeon 2
• redwing 2
• long tail tit 3
• great tit 1
• crow 1
• jay 2
• blackbird 3
• little egret 1 (at the brook)
• moorhen 2 (at the brook).

She also took some lovely photos of the birds in our garden (including the lovely photo of a tit by our beehouse (further below).

Lileng cleaned out the bird boxes and we moved one box and put up a new one. Last year, we noticed a wren had moved into our insect home, made from two hanging baskets tied together to make a globe. It had built itself the most comfortable looking nest inside.

The bug hotel when it was originally built

The Latin name for the wren ‘troglodytes’ means cave dweller, this is a direct link to its nest, a small domed structure hidden deep inside vegetation, so we are hopeful it will like the new nest site. 

The woven roof completely disintegrated last Autumn so, in order to encourage it back, Lileng  wove a new roof  with our coloured willow.

The nest inside the bug hotel

 

 

Lileng restores the bug hotel

Our solitary bees haven’t been so happy with the birds, though.This tit has eaten the bee cocoons at the open end of two of our bee home tunnels. 

Next year we will have to protect the bees from the tits.

Snow at Empty Common Community Garden

Our volunteer and supporter Ian sent us these photos from the snowy community garden. Snowdrops have appeared, so apt! These early blooms are always a delight. Below is a photo of the raised beds. It has not been a big snowfall, you can see blades of grass peeking out.