Monday 11th May
Report written by Ben Foster
Welcome to Victor for your first GoodGym session! ๐
After clearing the space 2 weeks ago, we now needed to remove the old rotting raised beds to install new ones, allowing the school to use the space as an educational growing area.
Some wooden beds were very rotten and came apart easily, with Ben and Victor carrying the pieces to the waste disposal area a short walk away. Others were less rotten, making the pieces heavy and took a while to saw in half!
Fanette and Hazel saved the strawberries for future use, while the mattock, hammer, and saw got a good workout to pull apart the old beds.
As we were dismantling, Peter from the school started piecing together the pre-cut pieces to produce 1.2 m x 2.4 m beds. With fingers crossed the drill batteries would hold and a spirit level, the beds were made, stabilisers were used to stop bowing, and waterproof sheeting used to try and reduce the speed of the beds rotting down.
With as many shovels as we could fine and lots of elbow grease, we managed to build and fill 2 new raises beds, in the 2 h session, with all the deadwood taken for disposal - the wheelbarrow flat tyre didn't hold up for this and meant we only got a small layer of fresh top soil too.
Top effort to get it done this evening! ๐ช Certainly earned some food and the water/biscuits after a heavy workout.
As part of our sustainability plans we are looking to help students and parents to understand how they can grow their own fruit and vegetables. Once the area is created this will be used with the students through their curriculum and as part of a gardening club, With the Parents we currently run a variety of support groups for parents and self sufficiency / gardening would be added to this .
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