Council threatens to turf over Leaf Street Community Garden (again ..)

 Leafy Street garden in Hulme is once again under threat - local residents have not been sticking to our agreements, and the council is threatening to turf over this amazing community asset, because it is a bit messy. A guy in a suit from our new social landlord, South City walked round the garden and proclaimed, "It can't stay like this!" The question I am asking is what our new social landlords are going to do, to help preserve and improve this immense social asset, on their manor??  

 

Local resident raises the alarm .. time to take action

Leafy Street resident Katie Coyote recently put a message out on facebook, warning residents that our community garden is once again under threat. In response a gardening day and community picnic is being organised for this Sunday, August 3rd, from about 12.00am onwards. Please come down and help. Katie has agreed to make some cakes .. excellent! In that case I will pick up some salad stuff from Glebelands tomorrow while I am at work, and make a dish myself.

Cummon now lets be sociable

I heard that some suit from the new housing association, South City, had been round Leaf St and proclaimed that "It cannot stay like this!" I agree, I don't think it should stay like it is, but I expect that my vision of how it should be is fairly radically different to his.

Since South City is a social landlord, and Leaf St is a social project, then I think we should make an effort to meet this suit, and tell him what a potentially excellent piece of social capital he has on the estate. I would be up for being part of a group to meet this guy, if someone else (maybe Maggie?) could make the initial contact and arrange a walk round. I would also want to know what resources (i.e. money) South City has, to support a social initiative such as this?

I do not think we should worry about this new threat too much, the council has always been threatening to level Leaf Street, but always sees sense in the end. I think the main thing is that we have a plan, to make it better managed, and then get on with it and do it. Talking of plans, following are my suggestions for how we should tackle the garden on Sunday. If you are interested in gardening, and are planning on coming out, then please read on. If you are not, then I recommend you go and find something else to read ;-)

 

How are we going to keep on top of Leaf Street?

Katie recently said on facebook that we had an urgent Ragwort problem, and that we should pull it all out on Sunday. Yes I agree, it should probably come out, at least before it goes to seed, which is soon. However, I think this is the least of our problems, and with a few bods on board I reckon we can have it out in no time at all. Having said that I was out and about earlier today, and couldn't help noticing that the Ragwort is even more extensive on Spider Park, and Birley Common - maybe when we finished on Leaf street, we should go and  pull out all the Ragwort on these place too? Or should we? Ragwort is poisonous to livestock, but I don't see many grazing animals round these parts. So is it good biodiversity or not - I would welcome any comments on this!

Goosegrass: we should have acted when Katie raised this issue on facebook about two months ago. Now it is going to seed. I've removed a lot over the last two weekends from the north end, but it is too little too late, since it is in the process of, and has already dispersed about a million seeds. In future years we will have to be very vigilant with weeding it out.

In a recent article I condemned the ground elder, because of its invasive nature. However, with the new invasion of goosegrass and bindweed this year, I am seeing the ground elder increasingly as our friend. Actually it forms quite a nice living mulch around the fruit trees, and can be harvested easily with shears, or a sickle, or billhook, and piled up around he base of trees, shrubs and fruit bushes. In addition ground elder is edible, and can be used in salads (in small amounts since it is a bit bitter.) If twenty Leafy Street residents harvested a little ground elder each week, for their supper, then we would easily keep on top of the invasive nature of this plant. Also, Lesley at Glebelands told me that she had seen a ground elder wine recipe somewhere - now this is an interesting project (I would be very much into testing the product ;-)

Eastern footpath: I think this should be one of our priorities for tidying up. I find a strimmer or a shovel (or lots of shovels) are best for removing the weeds from the path. We can make big compost heaps in unobtrusive areas, as has been done before.

Eastern edge along footpath: as with the footpath I would prioritise this. There are lots of nettles in this border, which can be hand pulled, rather than sheared, in order to weaken the root system. The nettles make good mulch material around the base of the fruit trees and bushes.

South east corner: this is almost certainly going to be the area that is pissing of the council the most. This could be scythed really efficiently.

Scything: There's a guy called Welsh Ben who is wanting to earn a bit of cash scything around Leaf St. Scottish Clair was consulting about using project funds to pay him a bit of cash. Rod would like to do a walk round with him before hand to show him what plants are meant to be there. The central 'lawn' area could also be easily scythed. Perhaps Ben could do a scything workshop, to make it more sociable? although he's off at climate camp at the moment, getting chased around by cops! If Ben scything is out of the question, Vanessa has two sickles that could do the job pretty quickly (although she is also at climate camp playing pig tig).

Oh something else as well. I have been watching two sycamore, and two ash trees growing taller and taller, towards the north end of the east border (behind Leah's block). They are now 15-20 foot tall. I don't know who's right it is to say whether they should stay or go, but it is my opinion that they should go. There is already a large sycamore just up from them, which takes up a lot of space and light. Do we want Leaf St to be a forest or a garden? I'm pretty sure the council would want them removed.

Forest gardening techniques on Leaf Street

Read this article to view photographs of comfrey planted as a living mulch around the base of eight year old fruit trees, in the forest garden area of Leaf Street community garden. The comfrey is successfully out-competing ground elder, and goose grass, as well as providing multiple other benefits as a mulch.

The comfrey in the following photographs has been planted as a green / living mulch, in rings, around the base of a number of fruit trees on Leaf Street. This is a low input system that offers the following multiple benefits:

1. As the comfey grows during the spring and summer, it is easily cut, using shears or a sickle, and the cuttings are placed around the trunk of the tree to form a thick, protective mulch. The comfrey can be cut two or three times during each growing season. Severe cutting does not harm the plant, as it stores a lot of energy in its roots.

2. The mulch provides multiple benefits to the fruit trees, including retention of ground water, and suppression of encroaching weeds, including ground elder and goose grass, for example.

3. Comfrey plants are known as 'dynamic accumulators', because they accumulate minerals and nutrients from the sub soil. When the leaves are cut and placed around the base of the trees as a mulch, the minerals are made available to the tree roots, as they rot down and percolate into the soil.

4. The thick roots of the comfrey form a dense barrier that prevents the spread of grasses and weeds around the base of the tree, which would otherwise spread, and compete with the fruit trees for scarce supplies of nutrients. In addition the thick foliage of the comfrey has a similar effect of suppressing weeds and grasses above ground.

The following photograph shows comfrey out-competing ground elder under an apple tree on Leaf Street (click photo for enlargement):

This next image shows some more comfrey successfully out-competing goose grass, under another near by fruit tree:

The third image shows the comfrey, having been freshly cut, and left in position around the base of the fruit tree, to act a s a mulch, retaining ground water, suppressing weeds, and slowly adding nutrients to the soil. The comfrey pant will live on, and push up new shoots, which can be cut again later in the year. Alternatively, the cuttings can be removed, and used to make a comfrey fertiliser for use elsewhere:

Thoughts on ground elder
The ground elder has been spreading invasively on Leaf Street for a number of years, and has thwarted the growth of more desirable species, including alpine strawberries. Two years ago local residents tried in vain to dig out the roots, but it has come back stronger than ever.

The following photograph was taken this year at Bangor Forest Garden, and shows lemon balm growing successfully out of, and out-competing the ground elder, underneath a fruit tree:

Lemon balm is an aromatic herb that was strongly recommended by the forest gardening pioneer Robert Hart in his books. The herb is an excellent companion plant for fruit trees, forms good ground cover, and can be used in fresh salads or herbal teas. It would be really excellent to see lots of lemon balm, and similar aromatic herbs planted as an understory, around the fruit trees on Leaf Street, in order to combat the spreading ground elder in a productive and energy efficient way.

Alternatively, the ground elder is not that bad. It is in fact an edible species, although it is a bit bitter. If all residents of Leaf Street made a point of harvesting a little bit of ground elder every week, as a salad leaf, then its invasive growth would be curtailed.

At the very least, the ground elder forms a good ground cover plant, and is healthy for the soil, and is in my mind a lot better than bare earth - which is land in its poorest state of health.

NOTE ABOUT MULCHING AROUND TREES: In order to use the comfrey cuttings to mulch properly, the plant should be cut, then placed in a torus pattern (i.e. like a donut) around the base of the tree's trunk, with a gap between the trunk, and the mulch material. It is important to do this in order to enable air to circulate around the trunk of the tree. Otherwise, as the mulch material rots down, and becomes moist, it can cause the base of the tree's trunk to become rotten, which could effectively destroy the tree.