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Ian is leaving on Thursday, having finished his M.Sc. dissertation on “Connecting Renewable Energy with Active Network Management” (there is a nice picture of a wind farm on the front page of his dissertation). He will be traveling for a month around Europe in his van that runs on used cooking oil. He thinks he has saved enough oil to power his entire trip. Ian did a great job on the backgreen while he was here and we will miss him a lot.

We celebrated Lindsay's birthday on this Saturday. Lindsay's parents made the birthday cake in the shape of the backgreen. Lindsay's brother brought his crazy 7-person bike and we all took turns riding it around the block (also around the Smithfield block). The little girls Courtney and Claire went around hitting everyone on the head with birthday balloons (actually, this was mostly Courtney). Lots of fun was had. Hopefully someone will upload pictures.

CSV Action Earth¹ and Scottish Natural Heritage have awarded the Wheatfield Backgreen a small grant to help improve biodiversity. The goal is to introduce new species of plants, birds, insects (especially butterflies), and other animals. As part of this grant, on 2008-07-20 (a Sunday) starting at 12:00 there will be a day of activity:

• Planting to provide much needed perennial colour to the area
  

• Building benches
  

• Building bird boxes
  

• Putting up trellises
  

• Eating BBQ
  

• Picking berries
  

• Enjoying a chat
  

• Weeding/clearing
  

The BTCV² will provide hot drinks and assistance. Volunteers will be provided with information and training to explain the project's aims and the environmental benefits of their work. The event should be fun for all age groups and all are welcome (friends, neighbors, family, etc.). Volunteers should wear sturdy shoes. Tools will be provided. Those under age 16 must be accompanied by an adult in order to do work as part of this event.

Karen has made a poster (ecotopia-2008-07-20-poster.pdf) that you can print and put up in your stair to tell people about the event.

There have been lots of other past events, but they were before this wiki was made. Feel free to add details of past events if you have them.

The Wheatfield Backgreen is shared by 262 flats in 21 tenements, with most of the flats having 1 or 2 bedrooms.³ All residents of the block are welcome to participate in enjoying and maintaining the backgreen. As of 2008-08, there is space for further allotments for growing vegetables, so additional farmers are also welcome. (If the space for growing vegetables ever becomes full, we may have to ration it, but there does not currently appear to be any danger of this happening soon.)

http://www.methodproducts.co.uk/peopleagainstdirty/

http://www.townandbridge.org.uk/garden/team.htm

http://www.herbaculture.co.uk/

http://www.actionearth.org.uk/

You can see some of the active gardeners on the People page.

• Part of the backgreen is set aside for vegetable-growing allotments.
  

• There are a number of beds with flowers and other interesting plants that we are maintaining. We would like to develop more.
  

• There is a large grass lawn which we keep mowed which is good for garden parties and similar activities.
  

• There is a large locked shed for keeping shared gardening equipment.
  

• There are composting facilities, including a “Rocket” composter (which produces compost in only 2 weeks).
  

• We have built a brick stand on which we light barbecue fires.

PLEASE FILL THIS SECTION IN. It would be nice to list the number of trees planted (and maybe their types), the number/size of garden plots, how much is being kept clear, etc. Pictures would be good.

The garden overall on 2008-08-10 looked like this:

In the spring of 2008, the vegetable-growing allotments in the backgreen looked like this:

You can read about how there came to be a shared backgreen.

There are a lot of things that could be done to improve the backgreen. Here is a partial list of ideas:

• plant more flowers/bushes/trees
  

• reorganize the allotments to use the space more efficiently (and look tidier in the process)
  

• painting washing poles
  

• fix shed roof
  

• Lids for compost bays
  

• plant summer bulbs
  

• take cuttings to cultivate
  

• Herb Garden
  

• Comfrey Plants
  

• get more organized about composting (including of food waste from the flats)
  

• permanent rubbish bins? permanent ashtrays?
  

• various other stuff (FEEL FREE TO EXTEND THIS LIST!)
  

• MINI PROJECTS - The concrete green! ideas? The gate area more planting. A rockery? Building a scarecow for fun.

There is also a lot of maintenance that needs to be done regularly:

• weeding
  

• mowing the grass
  

• picking up rubbish (some of this is blown in by the wind)
  

• repairing stuff as needed (e.g., stakes holding up plants, the wooden borders between the grass and the bays for the other plants, roof of shed, etc.)
  

• various other stuff (FEEL FREE TO EXTEND THIS LIST!)

http://www.growveg.com

http://rareplants.co.uk

http://www.dobies.co.uk

This wiki was started on 2008-07-06.

Do you have any questions or comments? If so, please feel free to use the quick comment box below to add your question or remark and your words will be added below. New comments will generally be noticed by Joe within a day (at the same time as he checks his e-mail), and he will either answer directly (by adding a comment below your comment) or forward your question to the rest of us.

You can also send e-mail to wheatfieldbackgreen@hotmail.co.uk, which will reach Richard, who will either answer directly or forward your message to the rest of us.

You can also simply edit this page (or any other page of this wiki) to make changes at any point in the text.

Comments:

2008-07-12 22:04:21   This is a test comment. Please feel free to add your own comments. The comments box allows you to quickly add a note. —JoeWells

2008-10-09 09:46:51   How are my Onions doing? Ian —131.251.142.139

Hi, Ian! I haven't picked any of what you planted, so I'm not sure. I forwarded your question to the others. I think we've all been really busy. Did the vegetable oil fuel your van all the way around Europe? —JoeWells

2008-10-19 14:38:34   i really wish we lived there!Welive in a housing association flat where most residents would prefer the tiny strip of garden to be tarmaced over to add to the huge area which is a car park.The landscapers arrive occasionally dressed in suits resembling nuclear power station workers to spray deadly weed killing substances.I used to have an allottment in someones garden but now have a spine condition so can't garden as i used to. I am bereft and would love to be part of a community like yours .well done to you for creating this wonderful garden.Do you know of anywhere my son and i could be involved? —78.144.162.173

My sympathies for your less-gardened living condition! If you can't move to a place with a better garden, you might want to consider joining in on some “guerrilla gardening” where people put new plants in public spaces. I'm not sure how that would work with your spine, but you could maybe help out in ways that don't involve bending and stooping. —JoeWells

2008-10-29 11:48:19   Yes Joe got all the way round on 'rubbish'. Will be in Edb this weekend so will try and pop my head round at the green.. :) —131.251.142.138

Eileen and I were out. Sorry we missed you. Sasha probably missed you too. I learned how to get Sasha to give back the stick so you can throw it again: you have to take her stick and split it down the middle lengthwise so she has 2 sticks. Then, she will drop one of the sticks while fetching the other one. —JoeWells

2008-11-18 14:10:54   i have a spine problem but would love to be involved-wish we could afford to move there,we live in a housing assoc flat with no gareden and some neighbours who do not get on!how lovely your backgreen looks and what a great place for kids.due to my spine i had to give up an allottment as it was too much alone.Do you welcome people from outside or would there be no point since i can't dig and weed so much now-not allowed.i am researching lots of possibilities as we miss gardening and being outside with friends and community.thanks.great project —78.148.34.118

2008-11-18 14:15:05   sorry,i've already asked you!shows how wonderful your project is! —78.148.34.118

2009-02-01 23:33:40   Hello This is Dano (there when the tree's were going in. I live in Ipswich now, www.herbaculture.co.uk and work in a community garden www.townandbridge.org/garden . Man I am sooooooo happy to see picture of Wheatfields and to hear about you all. It is so great to see what you have achieved and im getting tears thinking of all the goodness there is there. Well done......and bless you all

dano xxxxx —87.242.154.186

2009-02-26 13:55:10   Very excited about the spring bulbs we put in. Looking forwrd to seeingthem bloom! —LindsayUrquhart

2009-05-27 13:58:50   fantastic BBQ on Sunday and nice to see some new faces too! —194.159.238.226

2009-06-02 11:03:15   What an absolutely fantastic idea and achievement, congrats to all involved, inspiring stuff! —82.41.12.230

2010-01-06 20:42:33   The Garden looks beautiful with it's snowy covering. Very much looking forward to seeing the spring bulbs coming peeking through. I hear that we are also getting an load of tulips which will enhance our spring show and our biodiversity. Excellent news. Keep up the good work. —80.192.67.246