Big Fat Greek Update

Hello reader. This blog is under new management: my name is Sam Drew, and I'll be updating you with all of the exciting goings-on from Student Community Allotments (SCA). Here's some highlights from the Trowbridge House.

Trowbridge House

This site is coming along really well. In April I lost my vegetable-planting virginity to a Jerusalem Artichoke. Here are some photographs of the process, if you go in for that sort of thing.

This is a hole in the ground.

These are some Jerusalem Artichoke seedlings in the hole in the ground.

This is a hole in the ground that has been filled in. You can no longer see the Jerusalem Artichoke seedlings, because they are now beneath the ground.

We made a new friend called Wilkie, who does some farming out at Westbury. We had a little bonfire. It was nice.

From left to right: Wilkie, Simon, and Chris. Believe it or not, these guys are actually the lead guitarist, vocalist, and bongo player from the popular heavy metal band 'Slipknot'. This is what they look like under their masks.

Shortly after meeting Wilkie, we won Bath Spa university's Environmental Solutions Award. I'm not suggesting that Wilkie is some kind of demi-god bestowing gifts upon unsuspecting gardeners, but it was kind of a coincidence. Anyway, the nice people at the university gave us £500. Here are some of the things we spent the money on:

Goodies we bought with the £500 from Bath Spa, including gloves, a saw, and a very useful portable incinerator.

The portable incinerator proved very useful in getting rid of some of the weeds and small trees that have been hanging around since the very first day when we cleared the site. Here's a few of us using it:

In ascending height order: Rachel Acton-Filton, Carl Stevens, and Adam Barnett.

Some of the stuff we've planted is now at the stage where we can actually take it out of the ground and eat it:

Simon eating the first strawberry. Total air miles: about half an inch.

Two of the sandwiches that I harvested from our sandwich bush. Actually, it was just the lettuce.

And there's loads of other tasty stuff growing:

Some tomatoes taking a well-earned rest.

I think this is a courgette, but it could be a butternut squash. Answers on a postcard, please.

Loads of lettuce. Apparently, if you cut the leaves off the lettuce, then new leaves will grow in its place. It's amazing. It's a bit like that liquid robot thing from Terminator 2, except not like that at all.

So that's it for this update. If you'd like to get involved with growing fruit and vegetables at the Trowbridge House on Coronation Avenue in Bath, then drop me a line at samdrewapicture@gmail.com