Category: Ballymagroarty

Community Litter Picking

3/12/2013

Great morning spent litter picking along the Coshquin Road in the Derry sunshine. Groarty Primary were assisiting Ballymagroarty and Hazelbank Community Area Partnership and Springtown Activity and Horticultural Group with this clean up, all part of a wider Pride in our Place iniative spearheaded by Billy Page from BHCAP

In just over an hour we collected 18 bags of litter.....

Thanks to Billy Page for organising it, and to Derry City Council for organising collection of the bags, and to Todds of Campsie for sponsoring the bibs and to Patrick Duddym Housing Executive for the Litter Pickers....real joined up thinking here!!

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Ballymagroarty Community Garden

2/4/2013

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The Ballymagroarty Community Garden may be small, but it packs some punch! What was once a spot for anti-social behaviour such as graffiti and dumpbing has been transformed into a highly productive horticultural facility. The garden has been a prtnership process between BHCAP (ballymagroarty and Hazelbank Area Partnership) and Northern Ireland Housing Executive (the landowners), and shows how joined-up thinking can enhance and benefit an area. This garden has spawned a Springtown Activiy & Horticultural Group, supports the Mens Health Programme, has seen participants engaging in formal horticultural training with North West Regional College and more importantly it has changed peoples lives, if you go to th what the papers say page on this website you'll see many a piece on the Ballymagroarty area, all stemming from this project. Well I popped up on Sunday and took a few wee pics so that everyone can be encouraged by this community garden, and how it has developed over the past 2 years...

well worked outdoor beds

autumn planted crops

some of the herb tyres

autumn sown broad beans

lots of successional sowing going on

december sown sweet peas

autumn sown lupins

planted window boxes

You can see more on this Community Garden by clocking on this, this, this, this, this and this for previous blog postings...

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Ballymagroarty Garlic Planting

12/4/2012

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I've been saying it for a long time...Garlic is one of the easiest things you'd grow...and to show you don't even need a garden to grow your own fresh, incredibly tasty garlic this week the good folks in the Ballymagroarty Community Garden have been inspiring others in the community by planting garlic in pots...

we started by taking some bulbs from this summers harvest and breking them into cloves, in the tubs we have some multi-purpose compost and a handful of chicken manure pellets. You then plant the cloves 6-9" apart, plant the big cloves that spacing and then plant the wee skittery wee cloves in between. These wee skittery cloves we'll harvest as fresh garlic shoots and then leave the bigger cloves to reach decent size...

See...you don't even need a garden to grow great garlic..

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Ballymac Container Planting

11/27/2012

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This week we planted up pots full of large flowering Crocus and mixed large flowering pansys...the theme was 'kiddies picture'....I thought this was appropriate as when the plants come into flower it'll be a mad display of colour...just like a kiddies picture...

Another full house in Ballymagroarty Community Centre, thanks to Ballymagroarty & Hazelbank Community Area Partnership.

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Ballymac Container Planting

11/10/2012

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Another great morning of container planting fun in Balmagroarty Community Centre. This week we planted containers using conifers, heathers and winter pansy. The workshop is ran by BHCAP and participants come from al over Ballymacgroarty and Hazelbank, at the end of each week the folks take their pots all home with them...

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Autumn Container Planting Workshop

10/15/2012

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edible planters in summer

Come join me and the guys from the Springtown Horticultural and Activity Group for 4 sessions of Autumn and winter container planting workshops.

The first session is on sat 27th from 11am and will be held in the Ballymagroarty Community Centre. and then the 3 saturdays after this.

Each session will involve participants planting up a seasonal container for them then to take home and enjoy.

Guidance on plant selection, techniques etc will be offered by myself with grateful assistance from the Springtown Horticultural Group.

Cost per week is £2, this includes everything, all you need to bring is your enthusiasm and a smile (buns are always welcome!), and you'll go home with a super container each week.

Max 15 each week. You will have to book your place in advance with BallymaGroarty Hazelbank Community Partnership, by telephone on 02871271977.

All ages welcome, as you can see in the photo....so come along with your niece/nephew/grandchild whoever and enjoy getting yer hands dirty!!

group with chef emmett mccourt getting advice

group with chef Ian Orr getting some advice

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Groartys Celery...

9/18/2012

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In groarty Primary we planted some celery and few lettuce before the summer break...and its was harvesting time. we got a series pile of baby celery and a few nice lettuce...(the school janitor picked all the spuds on us during the sumer..boooo!!)

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Grow it Cook it day in Ballymagroarty Community Garden

8/14/2012

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I was fortunate enough to get an invite to the Springtown Activity and Horticultural groups 'Grow it Cook it' day in the Ballymagroarty Communtiy Garden a week past Monday....the group had arranged a special cookery show-case to unveil their new polytunnel for the garden area. The Polytunnel and group are generously sponsored by CityCabs...might seem strange a taxi company sponsoring a horticultural group...but its all local...local taxis, local group, local produce...all good.

The Springtown activity and Horticultural group were fortunate enough to be able to get the multi award winning Ian Orr from Browns Restaurant to come and cook al-Fresco in the Community Garden, Ian brought his mobile kitchen down and cooked up Salmons, Steaks and the likes with loads of fresh herbs, salads and veg from the garden itself...all under close scrutiny from the Ballymagroarty locals....

Ian is no stranger to the Ballymac Community Garden, he's been a visitor to the garden before, getting advice from the group on how to grow herbs and salads.....and commented on the selction of produce the group had, especially the Swiss Chard, Sprouting Broccoli, Kale and Bean selections.

and i'm sure this selection of goodies was tranformed into something amazing in Browns Restaurant that night!

now at the start of the demo folks were sitting down watching.....but as the flavours kicked up the folks stood up and packed over to see the goings on up-close....and to get a taste at the end of each dish Ian cooked....first come first served when it comes to sampling lol

steady stream of folks

tasting of Ians food went down great

storyboard told the story in pics of the garden

and to give a perspective to the transformation here....this pic is the site of the ballymagroarty community garden last September....a dumping ground unused by anyone....transformed into the garden it is today...a place able to create the buzz and enthusiasm of this type of 'Grow it cook it', creating positive images and health messages to the entire community....

Broighter Gold Rapeseed oil also came along to help promote the local food message....'Grown here not flown here' was Leonas phrase for the day...

award winning chef Ian Orr with Broighter Gold Rapeseed Oils...all promoting the local food message in the heart of the community

to help unveil the polytunnel Brenda Stevenson from Derry City Council came along....and to add to the buzz and the atmosphere Felix Healy brought the outside broadcast unit from Drive105 along and made the day extra special for everyone.

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Taking summer cuttings...

6/24/2012

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Many of us have been busy doing this over the past few weeks, planting hanging baskets. Indeed you may have yours planted a good 2 months by now, planting them up and then allowing them to thicken up in a polytunnel of greenhouse before putting them pride of place at the front of the house. On Saturday past I held a Hanging Basket Planting workshop on behalf of the Ballymagroarty and Hazelbank Community Area Partnership (BHCAP), Holy Family Mens Health Club and Springtown Activity Group. Thsi event was very well attended and for £2 you got to plant up a basket and take it home, all the materials were provided...amazing value....well over the next 3 coming saturdays we're exploring techniques for planting pots, window boxes and then some examples of edible containers...

the plant we used as a centrepiece is Fuchsia (white eyes was the variety), one of my all-time favourite plants. This is the plant which got me into Gardening - i've two uncles back home in Scotland who grow them and breed new varieties so i've always had a fondness for them since then. When you buy a Fuchsia plant it'll be about the £2 mark...a pretty price where you have 10 or more to buy, well these fellows root fierce easy from cuttings, cutting taken now will be rooted and ready to pot up in about 3-4 weeks and will be blooming by the end of summer, and in turn you can take more cuttings of them in late summer for over-wintering in a cold frame or greenhouse for next year....plants for nothing but a bit of spare time...

Now the process of takign the cutting benefits you and the overall display, hanging basket plante are best 'pinched back' when you plant them, the idea is here that when you pinch back the long growth it encourages the plant to produce 4 or more new stems in its place, thus giving you many more flowers and a bushier habit. Now the cuttings your taking are really these 'pinched out' bits, heres a picture of us taking summer cuttings from Fuchias during a Hroticulture class in North West Regional College. You'll see in the pots that the student is taking more than 1 cutting into the pot, this is to maximise return on space, not every cutting will take so by having 3 or more in a pot your ensuring some return on your space.

we go through every basket pinching back long growths, thus giving us plenty of materials to propogate and produce more plants from

Heres a great picture I found on-line showing what your cuttings should look like, you can clearly see the nodes (these are where the leaves come out from) - you can see the lower leaves have been removed, this part of the cutting will be below soil level so leaves are not needed, also at the top of the cutting the growing-tip has been removed and the top leaves have been reduced in size. With these fuchsia cuttings I don't bother with rooting powder, the growth is so green and fresh the plants don't need it to root. Place 3 or 5 into a pot, around the inside rim. The pot will be filled with a mix of multi-purpose compost and perlite.

You need to protect the cuttings from wilting to death, so to reduce water loss place the cuttings into a bag and tie the bag or onto a tray and cover with a plastic lid. Place the cuttings in a warm placve, away from direct sunlight, so on the shelf below the bench in the polytunnel or similar. Once a week open the bag and check for any rot and to make sure they've not went dry or anything, then tie the bag back up, repeat this until you can see new growth, when you see new growth remove the bag.

After 3-4 weeks your cuttings should be well enough rooted for them to be potted up into fresh compost into individual pots, we're been doing this all this past week in the college. Here you can see some cuttings with nice root systems just starting. In the compost you can see the flecks of white perlite.

and you'll have a scene like this soon enough....lost of free plants....enjoy!!

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Community Litter Picking

Ballymagroarty Community Garden

Ballymagroarty Garlic Planting

Ballymac Container Planting

Ballymac Container Planting

Autumn Container Planting Workshop

Groartys Celery...

Grow it Cook it day in Ballymagroarty Community Garden

Taking summer cuttings...

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