Garden

This is the new shed and garden composting area in the backgreen, built by the Green Caretakers, who operate the Backgreen Initiative and paid for by a grant to encourage community recycling. Inside one shed is the kitchen composting facility and in the other are the garden tools. Green Caretakers are a social enterprise and charges are made to use the composting facility and to hire the tools - there are overall packages available such as a tidy backgreen service and a combined backgreen and stairwell tidying and cleaning package. However if you live in a tenement where you can't get a majority of residents to sign up to these packages, you find yourself having to pay just to use tools or to compost kitchen waste, even if you're a volunteer with the project, hmm....

Anyway, I spent part of yesterday clearing litter from the path connecting our stairwell's backgreen to the communal area. I left behind any biodegradable litter, such as wood and also anything that was being used as a home by woodlice etc. The photo below shows the path after I had cleared the brambles, nettles and overhanging branches but before I had cleared the litter. The gardens either side of the path belong to other stairs in the block and I can't do anything with those other than prune overhanging branches and remove the worst types of weeds and litter that are at the edge of the path.

The next task is obviously to do some more weeding. I'm a reluctant weeder, because I like plants too much but the path just doesn't look nice (though at least its really a path now!). I'm also going to sow seeds in some of the verges once I've weeded. I'll buy a packet of shade tolerant wildflower seeds and sow next Spring.