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OCTOBER NEWS FROM GROWING MATTERS

Skeins of geese have been flying over the garden these past few weeks and this group came past on Sunday just as the clocks changed. All these certain signs of winter around us and a real chill in the air at our volunteer session this morning.

Winter in the garden however doesn't mean we can all hibernate and wait for spring - we will be planting in our raspberries before the end of November and we have a beautifully neat strawberry patch all lined up with over a hundred plants in here to fruit next summer.

We have been spending some time in the last few sessions marking out other areas of the garden and we now have another of our wide access paths indicated along the edge of the fruit garden.

Di and Helen also made a great job of pegging out the rest of our orchard which we are hoping to plant with bare root apples this winter.

F O L L O W on F A C E B O O K

F O L L O W on T W I T T E R

Winter weather jobs

OCTOBER UPDATE

We are thrilled with our new composting bins sitting just behind the polytunnel in the garden - these are really substantial will hold a lot of compostable material and look really smart. A huge thank you to Jerry, Blue and particularly to Harold who has worked meticulously to get these done.

Not something we always think about but we can still sow hardy perennial seeds just now. These trays have just been done and are sitting in our polytunnel for the winter - some will emerge as we move into December and we will have seedlings ready to plant out early next spring

Amongst this lot are aquilegia, lupins, heliopsis, anemones and delphiniums to name but a few - these are all for our perennial cut flower garden which will sit either side of the fruit garden towards the west facing wall. The ground for these has been well rotovated and both areas for the perennials have been covered with carpet to keep down the weeds.

All our volunteers have been working really hard the last few weeks and we would like to extend a warm welcome to Steve, Susan and Clare, all of whom have just started with us this month. Volunteer sessions are from 10am to 1pm on a Monday and 1pm to 4pm on a Thursday so do feel free to come along and join in.

Di Simcock and myself visited the KSB annual seminar at the Albert Halls in Stirling last week. This is the first time we have entered the garden in to the 'Its Your Neighbourhood' awards scheme and we were delighted to recieve a certificate at the awards ceremony.

It was great to be part of the day and there are some amazing initiatives out there all working hard to keep community groups motivated around green space projects.

Contact June on june@gilmertonhouse.com or call 07984334535 for more information about getting involved.
www.gilmertonhousekitchengarden.org