Bloomin' marvellous!

Lovely golden-flowered wild rose at the top end.

Hi all
'Our' Graham has been hard at work in the garden, planting the most beautiful combination of flowers, herbs and even vegetables. Here's a taste for you. Enjoy – and come visit!
Really sorry, no dogs, no wheels, though.

Centre piece in gold and purple – Chives, Aquilegia (Granny's bonnet), tulips – golden-flowered rose in the background

Mysterious Mecanopsis – what a success story here!

Beans flowering in the vegetable patch

More photos from the Lynnside Community Garden

Dear All

The top end of the garden is taking shape beautifully, thanks to a lot of work, thanks mostly due to Graham's tireless efforts.

He has contributed the photos here, taken over the last few weeks. Lovely autumn colours, don't you think?

If you would like to contribute in terms of time and/or money, we will be happy to get back to you. Simply leave a comment at the end of this post with your contact details – your comment will not be published.

It is hoped that the garden can at long last be opened to the public next spring. Watch this space!

Even in autumn, a riot of colour

Hello again
Graham has done a sterling job in selecting robust flowers (bulbs, annuals, perennials) that even after a wet and chilly periods looks stunning on a grey autumn afternoon.
Would anyone like to sponsor a bench, or a fruit tree, or some more planting? Donations are always welcome!

A "wiggly"-shaped central eye-catcher alive with colour.
All photographs in this post: © by Margret Powell-Joss.

Interesting shapes, textures and colours as we look towards the retaining wall at the top of the "top end".

A striking feature is the circular motif of lovely cobblestones.

The "top end" seen from the footpath that connects it to the gate in Dalintart Lane.

Just magic! A riot of colours: yellow and orange calendula, blue cornflowers, pink rocks and gravel, green foliage.

View of the "woodland/wild area". Click on the photo to find the bright red rosehips.

Graham's Biochar® experiment: the raised bed on the left contains a mix of Biochar® and compost; the raised bed on the right contains compost only. Better photos to follow, hopefully.

The Top end of our Community Garden is taking shape

What a difference!
It's taken a while and may take a while yet until we can officially open. Still, there's no denying that a great deal of progress has been made:

Photograph by Margret Powell-Joss

Above: before (November 2008)
Below: after (June 2012)

© Photograph by Graham Scott

Amazing work!

© Photograph by Graham Scott.

Success!

Dear all

Great good news!

We've been successful in obtaining funding from two different sources:
The Scottish Public Health Network have granted us £2000 to use as per our bid – details available upon request.
Awards for All have granted us £9,980 to use as per our application – details available upon request.

What a fantastic Xmas present. Having this funding in the bank means that we should be able to proceed with work on the "top end" of the garden in the spring. Yay!!

Winner of the Sunflower Competition

Dear All


We take great pleasure in announcing the winner of the sunflower competition launched at Oban's Charities Day on 12th June 2010:

For his sunflower (no. 8) Connor McPhail will receive a cheque for £10 (in lieu of the promised ticket to Oban Cinema which is, sadly, closed for the duration).

Congratulations!

Autumn in the Garden

Autumn has officially begun. A few visual impressions:

Artichoke flowers.
The artichoke is a perennial plant and produces delicious flower bulbs.

Recipe for steamed artichoke (one fist-sized bulb serves one):
Clean the bulb, snip off the prickly tips of the outer leaves, cut off the stem and base of the bulb. Place upright in a steamer or in steam tray in saucepan. Add adequate amount of water (we don't want to destroy the pot or pan, now, do we?)
Squeeze juice of half a lemon over the artichoke. From other half of lemon, cut a few rings and place on top of artichoke. Put lid on and steam gently for 15 to 20 minutes. Allow to cool down before starting to remove outer leaves.
While the artichoke cools down, prepare the vinaigrette: two table-spoons of freshly-squeezed lemon juice, a pinch of salt, some chopped or scissor-snipped fresh herbs (anything that comes ot hand including parsley, chives, thyme, a little mint or sage, oregano or marjoram), four table-spoons of extra-virgin olive oil.
Eating an artichoke is a hands-on affair, so make sure your hands are clean before you start:
Dip bottoms or fleshy part of leaves into the vinaigrette. Place fleshy part of the leaf between your teeth, holding on to the tip, and pull. Allow time between morsels to catch the typical artichoke flavour to rise from the back of your mouth.
When you've pulled off and enjoyed the flesh from the leaves, take a very sharp knife and slice off the cover of hairs inside (which would grow into the actual flowers) to reveal the "heart". Pull out any stringy bits left of the stem and make sure none of the "hairs" are left on the heart. Cut it into small pieces and toss into the vinaigrette. Eat slowly, piece by piece.


Zucchetti flower. They're still going strong but the near-frosty nights aren't terribly good for them.

One of the sunflowers in the Sunflower Competition. Not necessarily the tallest but it's got a beautiful flower.

Flower Festival – Lynnside Community Garden at Ardmaddy Castle on Sunday, 15th August 2010

Dear All

Just in the nick of time, here are a few flower photos from our garden to celebrate the ongoing Flower Festival. Tomorrow, Sunday, the Lynnside Community Garden will join many other flower-related activists for an afternoon at the stunningly beautiful Ardmaddy Castle gardens.

Stunning red-orange-purple Osteospermum daisies. Our gardener, Graham, has planted several varieties of them, ranging from pure white to deep red via pale yellow and bright orange.

Above, a kale flower with a honeybee; below, the flower of a pumpkin. We'll see how big it will get.

This photo of a deep red sunflower was taken "blind", the camera being held above the flower facing straight into the sky. The ladybird was an unexpected bonus.

The lovely veggie patch with real marigolds and a couple of bright red poppies glimpsed through a gap in the wooden fence along Dalintart Lane.

 Your blogger had this fabulous salad for a late lunch/early tea today. 

The recipe? With pleasure:

Take a good handful of tender cut-and-grow-again lettuce leaves. add a few rocket leaves, pluck the petals off a couple of marigold heads, chop in a few small carrots, a couple of organic tomatoes, perhaps half an avocado, and LOTS of fresh herbs – chives, sage, marjoram or oregano, parsley. Sprinkle on some crushed sea salt and about a teaspoon of balsamic vinegar and add a generous squirt of extra virgin olive oil. Toss the lot gently but thoroughly and garnish with as many nasturtium blossoms as there are people to share this bounty with. Bon appétit!

No meal is quite complete without a pretty nosegay. This one consists of two sprigs of purple and one sprig of red sweet pea blossoms plus a sprig of flowering spearmint. Ah, the fragrance is exquisite!

More July in the Garden

The sunflower seedlings have grown in the past four weeks and need re-potting in the next few days.

Pretty nasturtiums grown in a box. Something about the place/soil doesn't seem to agree with them -- too rich? Too hot for a while? Too sunny?

These are some of the first baby carrots I've pulled out of a box. Not exactly the kind of success we had been hoping for. The thinned out and replanted ones have grown well but with very crooked roots. The ones we left alone are puny. The nasturtium blossom will provide a lovely highlight to a bowl of lovely salad, most ingredients coming from our Community Garden (of course I'm leaving a donation in the box!).

These are the ingredients for my salad: all manner of green and red leaves, including at least three different kinds of cut-and-grow again lettuce, plus rocket, spinach and red chard, and the petals of marigold and a nasturtium blossom for colour, plus the most delicate sugar snap peas you can wish and hope for. Absolutely delicious!

And this is the salad just before it is served, glistening with extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with a dash of Balsamic vinegar and a sprinkling of sea salt -- the simplest dressing but so tasty!
Finally, the main vegetable in the main course this evening, a whopper of a kohlrabi (about 4 inches in diameter):

It will need trimming but most of the leaves should be lovely, provided you cut them into thin strips and toss them in hot oil for about ten minutes. Cook the thinly sliced "meat" of the kohlrabi for about fifteen minutes: when it's this big, the bottom half tends to get a bit stringy and needs a bit longer to cook. The flavour is slightly sweet, the vegetable has a crisp, clean bite and is very juicy. One of my favourites in the cabbage family.

July in the garden

Hiya again

After one of the dryest months of June on record, July has been generous in terms of rain, and hasn't stinted on wind, either. It's quite pleasant not to have to water the garden but the drop in temperature means that growth may slow down a bit. Also, we have to be vigilant to make sure ripe fruit and veg don't rot on the ground and on the stems.

Here are a few visual impressions taken earlier today when the sun was actually out and summer seemed to have returned to Oban.

A beautiful, bright pink dog rose (Rosa canina) with a fragrance fit for queens and princesses...

– this beauty grows in the Wilderness Area (see comment for correct name, i.e. Rosa rugosa).

Tiny pansies and bi-colour buttercups welcome visitors at the entrance (again, the correct name for the buttercups is poached egg plant, aka Limnanthes douglasii -- see commment).

The golden-orange Achillea millefolium, or Yarrow, is a traditional healing plant to stop bleeding and to treat wounds and various forms of inflammation. Read more at Suite101: Achillea millefolium: Yarrow’s Long Medicinal History is Steeped in Legend and Practice http://herbal-properties.suite101.com/article.cfm/achillea_millefolium#ixzz0tJAkJOjb

... as is Mullein or Verbascum: it is a biennial, which means the first year you will only see a rosette of velvety silvery leaves on the ground; the striking "candelabra" emerge only in the second year. Verbascum blossoms are good expectorants, which means they help to get rid of phlegm or sputum. According to http://www.herbalremediesinfo.com/verbascum.html, "The plant has many folk names, some call it Velvet Plant, Candle Leaf, Indian Tobacco, even Blanket Leaf." That website has loads more information for you -- well worth a visit.

Now, shall we coat this beauty in batter and fry to serve as a "fior di zucco" (Zucchini blossom) starter?

Or should we leave it to grow into a lovely green zucchino or into a big marrow?

Kale blossoms are beautiful.

On a slightly less positive note, the butterbur and dock along the burn have made a full comeback. At least dock leaves, rubbed onto the skin, alleviate insect bites and burns caused by stinging nettles.

This is (a slightly tricked-out) view of the Wilderness Part from the Top End.

The aspens and silver birch look stunning. They're also home and shelter to a multitude of songbirds.

One reason why we haven't opened the garden to the general public: lots of broken glass, one reminder that the grounds used to be a dump. Every rain washes up bits of plastic, broken glass, rusting iron... Picking the rubbish is an endless, and endlessly fascinating, task.

Let's go back to the beauties – in this case true or common marigolds (Calendula). A great plant to improve soil quality and feed nutrients back into the ground. The blossoms are edible and the petals lift any leafy salad onto quite a different plane -- just try it!

Red chard -- isnt't it beautiful? What's even better is that, if cut before it's huge, all of it can be eaten. My favourite way: cut just above the ground (be careful not to damage younger stems), rinse in cold water, cut into half-inch strips or rings using sharp scissors, toss in hot butter or olive oil for a few minutes, sprinkle with a pinch of sea salt. Serve hot or cold, with a few drops of good quality Balsamico vinegar, to accompany an omelet or a slice of braised chicken, or whatever else you enjoy cooking up.

Young leaves can be eaten raw and look great in any leafy salad. Again, make sure to use the flashy red stalks, not only visually attractive but also a great source of fibre.

Oh, the sugar snap peas are nearly ready! The kids love  LOVE    L O O O V E    them!

Potato blossoms -- these ones are extremely pretty, and so are potato leaves, don't you think?

A look across the vegetable beds in our Community Garden. Graham has been instrumental in planting potatoes, kale, onions, garlic, sugar snap peas, beans, chard (yellow, white, red), spinach, pumpkins, sunflowers, sweet peas, nasturtiums, and and and...
Before they went into the ground, seedlings were potted and re-potted to give them that extra boost and defense against pests such as slugs and snails. They weren't much of a problem during the dry spell but now the rain's back, it's a different matter.

In the Wilderness Part, there's a semicircular patch for herbs and other useful things. One of them is a beautiful silvery-leaved globe artichoke. A sunflower may also soon grace us with its golden flower. More sunflowers have been planted along the fence. 

Finally, the Top End: still awaiting funds for landscaping and "hardware": benches, walled-in raised beds -- the design is beautiful; here's hoping we can publish it here soon.