It’s been another very active month on The Greenspace. On 10th September there was a huge turnout of over 20 volunteers to help lay the base (level the soil and put down slabs) and erect our new 10ft x 8ft shed. The pictures below show all the hard work involved.
Meanwhile the other volunteers set to work tidying the rest of the site and continuing our programme of stabilising the structure of our very steep site by constructing terracing using pallet walls, building flights of stone steps and laying paths using weed matting and chipped bark.
In the weeks that have followed these site improvement activities have continued. A beautiful drystone wall has been constructed at the bottom of the site near the shed – this has taken several weeks. The pictures below show work taking place and the finished product.
Just above the wall brightly coloured heathers have been added and then the pallet wall above them painted the same colours!
Yet another batch of chipped bark was kindly donated by Mark Hudson and this carried up Church Steps and even more paths improved with weed matting covered in chipped bark.
A flight of stone stairs has now been constructed…
The raspberries have been moved from their very shady former position to a much lighter one to the right of the above staircase – picture below shows the trenches being dug for the raspberries.
The wildflower meadow has had persistent perennial weeds removed and replaced with perennial wildflower plants (ox-eye daisies, columbine, avens) which will hopefully improve the flower display next year.
The new shed was painted with sealant and the decorated by the children attending our very successful Apple Day on the 15th October (see here for full report on Milford Apple Day).
We applied for and have been granted £310 from Belper Town Council for the materials to extend the eaves of the new shed and put shelves inside, and construction is now underway. We are also hoping to set up water butts on the new shed, and this month have finally connected up the water butt on the old shed.
In the last report we described how we had undertaken a mail shot to every house in the village asking for volunteers for the Greenspace. This was highly successful and the huge progress we have clearly made in the last month would not have been possible without the extra volunteers that now regularly come to help. The Greenspace is probably the smartest it has ever looked at the moment and it is hard to believe that just over a year ago we doubled the size of the space by taking over the jungle of persistent weeds that was the adjacent allotment and how it has been utterly transformed.
