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

Friday, 16 Nov 2012, 7pm – "Old Oban" slide show – fundraiser for our garden

Dear All

There will be an "Old Oban" slideshow to raise funds for the project – a fantastic kick-off of Oban's 2nd Winter Festival.

7pm, Glencruitten Church Hall, Glencruitten Road, Oban, Argyll

Bring a friend or three – and why not bring a generous donation also. We look forward to seeing you there.

For further details, please see flyers posted all over Oban, or call Kay at 01631 564 092

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 Simply leave a comment at the end of this post with your contact details – your comment will not be published.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!

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.

After a very warm month of April

Spring has come as early to the Lynnside garden as elsewhere in the country.
Graham has worked hard, tidying raised beds. The first early potatoes are already showing above ground.

A spectacular clump of Mecanopsis Sheldonii or Blue Poppies brings a splash of colour to the green patch at the bottom. A wee strim will keep weeds in check.

Dry branches from trimmed trees may present a wee bit of an obstacle to not-so-welcome intruders. The place presents other hazards, such as shards of broken glass still coming out of the ground although massive amounts of rubbish have been cleared already. Not surprising, really, as for some forty years the plot served as an inofficial dumping ground for neighbours' waste.

Great good funding news

Dear All

We have reason to rejoice!

A funding request submitted to the Scottish Public Health Network has been successful.
This means that we will soon have another £2000 towards sorting out the "Top End" of our garden.
Well done everyone involved in submitting this bid and many, many thanks to SPHN!!

Cheerioh for now!


PS:
We're also hoping for some good news on a funding bid submitted to Awards for All. We'll keep you posted...

... and the Winner Is –

Dear All

Remember the Sunflower Competition that we kicked off at the Oban Charities Day in June 2010?
Well, the winner has now been officially identified based on photographic evidence and we can name him as

Conor McPhail

a young boy from the Oban-Glencruitten area.
His was sunflower no. 8, and he will be given a cash prize of £10 shortly. Well done, Conor, congratulations!

Here's the link to a clip showing the winning sunflower as it looked on sunny 8th October 2010 (apologies for your having to view it sideways – I wasn't thinking when I recorded this with my wee digital camera):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwQNNyXZTGM&feature=&p=D155929C3AA2DE21&index=0&playnext=1

Competition was very stiff, with a few contenders doing well later on, which you can see here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJZZtNByi6k&p=D155929C3AA2DE21&index=5&playnext=2
and here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwQNNyXZTGM&p=D155929C3AA2DE21&index=6&playnext=3

Sadly, some people have no respect for plants and several of the participating flowers were decapitated. Also, the recent storms blew rather too strongly for the thin poles helping the sunflowers to stand. So things look a bit bedraggled just now. Some flowers are still in bloom, however.

More news soon, hopefully! Cheerioh for now – enjoy the gorgeous autumn colours.

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.

Lorn Garden Club Flower Festival at Ardmaddy Castle Garden

Dear all

Lorn Garden Club had booked a fabulous day for their Flower Festival at Ardmaddy Garden. Here are a few visual impressions:

Some of the veggies on offer at our table: carrots, beetroot; French beans, runner beans, broad beans; radishes, green peppers, small green chilly peppers; followed by a colourful nosegay with sweet peas, spearmint, real marigolds, cornflowers and red clover:

Our informative posters attracted quite a lot of attention. We "recycled" them from the Oban Charities' Day in June.

More veg: fir apple potatoes, onions, zucchini with blossoms, kale and sugar-snap peas; the highlight is provided by a few nasturtium blossom.

The weather was simply perfect: warm, sunny, with just the faintest of breezes. This is nearly the end of the day, when the landlord of Ardmaddy Castle, Mr Charles Struthers, called out the winning numbers of the raffle.

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!

Sunflower competition

Hiya

The Lynnside Community Garden committee decided to embark on a Sunflower Competition. Seeds were paid for and planted on 12th June. Three weeks later, the plugs were nearly ready to go into the ground:

And now, mid-August, the young sunflowers are trying to reach the top of the wall at the top end of the garden. Here are just a few of the nearly fifty plants in the competition, with what looks like a fairly strong contender for first prize:

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.

Lynnside Community Garden stall at Oban Charities Day

Hiya again
Our garden had a fab stall at this year's Charities Day:

Viv in her superb sunflower headdress and with our informative photo boards.

Two ladies making sure the sunflower seeds go into the wee compostable growing pots.

Smiles all around as more and more children and adults take part in the sunflower competition, and fewer and fewer sunflower plants remain on the stall.
Feedback, please!

2010 – International Year of Biodiversity – A list of trees, flowers and plants in our Community Garden

Hello again
In the International Year of Biodiversity, it is our pleasure to share with you a list of tree, flower and bird species that have been identified in our Community Garden.
The list of English names has been supplied by our rural regeneration specialist, Graham Scott; your blogger has done her best to add Latin names and provide links to websites so you can see what we're talking about.
Your blogger is no specialist -- any feedback and corrections will be most warmly received. Simply use the comment box at the end of this post.
Catch you later... -- enjoy this magical spring.

Trees

Common Alder (Alnus glutinosa)

Grey Alder (Alnus incana)

Aspen (Populus tremula)

Downy Birch (Betula pubescens)

Oak (Quercus robur)

Sycamore Maple (Acer pseudoplatanus)
Silver Birch (Betula pendula)

Wildflowers

Common Honeysuckle or Woodbine (Lonicera periclymenum)

Dog Rose (Rosa canina)

Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus)

Neophytes
A few remnants of Great Willowherb (Epilobium hirsutum), Rosebay Willowherb
aka Canadian Fireweed (Epilobium angustifolium) and Himalayan Balsam aka Kiss-me-on-the-mountain aka Policeman's Helmet (Impatiens glandulifera) have survived last year's manual eradication.
Butterbur (Petasites hybridus) presents an ongoing problem and is being manually eradicated because herbicides don't really do the job.

Birds

Grey Heron (Ardea cinerea) 

Dipper (Cinclus cinclus)

Pied Wagtail (Motacilla alba)

Grey Wagtail (Motacilla cinerea)

Swallow (Hirundo rustica)

Swift (Apus apus)

Turtle Dove (Streptopelia turtur)

Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) -- last Monday, a mother Mallard had ten ducklings in the burn!

Rook (Corvus frugilegus)

Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix)

Jackdaw (Corvus monedula)

Blackbird (Turdus merula)

Song Thrush (Turdus philomelos)

Mistle Thrush (Turdus viscivorus)

Fieldfare (Turdus pilaris)

Waxwing (Bombycilla garrulus)

House Sparrow (Passer domesticus)

Tree Sparrow (Passer montanus)

Robin (Erithacus rubercula)

Great Tit (Parus major)

Blue Tit (Cyanistes caeruleus)

Long-tailed Tit (Aegithalos caudatus)
Treeereeper (Certhia familiaris)

Wren (Troglodytes troglodytes)

Chaffinch (Fringilla coelebs)

Goldfinch (Carduelis carduelis)

Greenfinch (Carduelis chloris)

Flood no. 9 - the video

As the rain is abating, the floodwaters are receding. Just after 1pm I took a wee 55-second video which I have posted to Youtube for all to see:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clwAS85t9v8

Lynnside Flood No. 9 - part 2

The saga continues:

 The young lady in these photos gingerly negotiated her way through the ankle-deep water by the strong metal fence. I asked her permission to photograph, which she granted with a big smile.

Flood no 9 - part 1

Hiya again
We're currently experiencing some heavy rains, but this is really only day two after a long spell of very dry weather so I'm surprised to see the burn overflowing already.
Here is a photo taken at 8:15 this morning:

And here is one taken just a few minutes ago, at 11:56AM -- not long now and the footpath will be fully submerged:

And indeed, by 12:25PM, the water flows across the footpath. The car park below the stone wall is half flooded now, also.

PS:
Just before I took the 11:56 photo above, I watched a boy, maybe twelve years old?, in dark-blue track pants and hooded sweat shirt squatting and standing on the edge of this side of the burn. He had climbed across the tall fence separating the Nelson Road housing estate (West Highland Housing Association property) from the burn and was holding on to the fence with one hand. How he got across the burn to the Miller Road side, I do not know. I actually didn't notice him until after I took this photograph, where you can just see him on the very edge of the picture on the right -- a tiny blue dot:

I shouted to the boy but he pretended not to pay any attention. My heart was racing as I watched him brace himself and then jump across the burn, which now flows in full spate along a narrow water channel.
The boy then very, very slowly clambered back over the fence, which is nearly as tall as he. He ambled back into the housing estate before disappearing around the corner of the house nearest the burn.
I tried to call the police but they're obviously busy dealing with flooding elsewhere...
Can I describe my feeling of helplessness as I watched this boy intent on a thrill?