Charley Pope
Upon visiting the Communigrow field for the first time the first thing that struck me was what a beautiful spot it was. David, our Horticultural Leader, said to me with a big smile, “It’s great, my job is to come and work in a walled garden!”, and I couldn’t agree more.
It was a brilliant, crisp January morning and one of the first jobs was to feed the birds. Something that I immediately admired was the way in which there is such a sense of working with nature, not against it.
A veg box needed to be put together for one of our trustees so I helped assemble a wide array of different winter goodies. As a complete novice I was surprised how many things were still growing during these colder months. Salad leaves of different shapes and textures, brussel sprouts cut straight from the stalk and magnificent rainbow chard leaves full of colour in the winter sun. The veg boxes are one of my personal favourites at Communigrow; a real showcase of local produce and community supported agriculture at its best.
We finally got to sew some early onions and a few other early seeds. These would be started off in the greenhouse and then eventually planted out. There was something quite relaxing about the process, topped off by being completely surrounded by the great outdoors. I’m very much looking forward to learning about growing, and hopefully being able to translate that into some home grown fruit and veg of my own!
-Charley (Social Media Volunteer)