Geraldine in the Good Neighbours garden demonstrating how you can use on old ironing board to sieve soil or compost to make a fine tilth to use in raised beds or containers
Category Archives: allotment
CGN garden settles in for autumn
November update on the Good Neighbours garden
waiting for the baked potatoes to cook
The Good Neighbours garden is now getting much more sunshine now that the big willow tree has been pollarded. We have also started getting into have a small fire to cook baked potatoes, veggie sausages and the like at our Friday morning get togethers 
Charlotte visisted the garden recently and is pictured here with one of the late flowering cosmos flowers that Tony had planted
……and here is Tony admiring his work 
Good Neighbours Garden update
Lots of borlotti beans to pick today (22-07-16) and runner beans too. They need very little maintenance and have grown really well this year in the raised beds
Here is Geraldine with some of the beans she has been picking
Our little friend – a young robin (without the redbreast which they acquire later) perched on the raised bed
Our Cavolo nero or black kale always seems to do well. Tastes good and looks good too
Some of this weeks haul – shallots, garlic, beans & courgettes
CGN Garden update
Garden has been doing well recently, but not enough sunshine (for us and the plants). Still, we are beginning to enjoy some produce including rhubarb, peas, beans, courgettes, cauliflower, garlic and red currants. Rain eventually stopped play today (15th July) but beginning to think about our plans for the future, including some additional raised beds
tomatoes doing well in the greenhouse
some cucumbers on this side of the greenhouse
the small raised beds
Tony looking out
Geraldine admires this week’s produce
redcurrants, cauliflower, garlic, rhubar, corgettes, baby carrots in this weeks haul
Chorlton Open Garden day
Chorlton Open Garden day Sunday 26th June 2016
We had about 150 visitors to the Good Neighbours community garden on Chorlton Oen Gardens. Very enjoyable it was too
Here is Geraldine talking to visitors about what we are growing in the raised beads
Philip and friend enjoying a nice cup of tea
Bernard taking home the cauliflowers which we harvested at the end of the open day as they were in their prime and would bolt if we left then there any longer
I Promised to take them home and cook a cauliflower cheese, so here it is. I freeze some then bring into next Friday’s garden club tp warm up and for all to have a taste 
Getting ready for Chorlton Open Gardens
Working hard in the Good Neighbours Garden, slowly getting it in shape for the Chorlton Open Garden’s day on Jun 26th
Spring at last in the Good Neighbours Garden
Tony shows us his garlic
tidying the garden up, ready for planting
Good Neighbours Garden Spring & Summer 2015
Some photos from the Good Neighbours garden in Spring and Summer 2015
Bill in the garden in Spring
Paul’s kitten – one of the ones abandoned outside Morrisons
Paul 
Some early season planting
Enjoying some of Tony’s jokes. He brings in the weekly collection to entertain us
Planting a hanging basket
more seed sowing
tidying up the raised beds
Bill takes a break
Early summer and the raised beds begin to fill up
the first ripe tomatoes in the Greenhouse – Ferlines and Sungold
Bill talks to Joan as they look at the vegetables that have been produced that week
Tony gives us a wave
The Good Neighbours Garden in September
On Friday 19th September members of the Good Neighbours gardening club were out in the garden enjoying yer another lovely day. What a great September it has been for weather. You can see below some of the produce we have been picking
Here Tony shows us the ripening tomatoes in the greenhouse. These are Ferline tomatoes. Even the ones outside have been doing well and are now ripening up
A wider shot of the greenhouse shows how many of the tomaties are ripening. The smaller, orangey tomatoes are a variety called Sungold. They are one of the tasties tomatoes I have come across
In this video Tony tells us some jokes. Each week he has a selection from each week’s jokes he has on a calendar (there is a joke for each day). As you can see, some are better than others!
Garden Update 4th April 14
Garden Update 4th April 14
We welcomed Paul back to the gardening group at Chorlton Good Neighbours, after he had been out of action for several months. We filled some bags with earth and put in some of the chitted potatoes and continued with the weeding of the Church garden at the fron
In the video, Geraldine explains the day’s plan
Tony brought some glass beads and a tile which he had found at the Oxfam shop. They will be used as part of the mosaic making project with a parent from Oswald Road Primary school who has been involved in similar project with the school
Spring is on its way in the CGN garden
Spring is on its way in the CGN garden
We spent the usual Friday morning, working (with plenty of stops for tea & coffee) in the Good Neighbours garden. Weather was the best of the year so far and we got plenty done. Lots of new seeds put into seed trays to germinate in the greenhouse. We included some exotic flowers & vegetables like quinoa and rats tales ‘chilli’ radishes
Here is Bill in the greenhouse 
Some of the seed trays in the greenhouse
Geraldine and Bill potting up some seeds
Paulette weeding the Church’s front garden. Where we have weeded we scattered some wild flower seeds to brighten up the area
Tony surveying his work 
The tomato plants that Bernard has re-potted for later planting in the CGN greenhouse/The two varieties are Sungold and Ferline. Sungold are some of the tastiest tomatoes around and Ferline are supposed to show some resistance to blight, fusarium and verticillium wilt
Planting some onions in the CGN Garden plot
Planting Onions on the Good Neighbours plot
Spring is happening but on this Friday in March (14-03-14) the weather was a bit chilly, especially as the previous Wednesday had been very warm.
We used our time productively to put a new hard tyre wheel on the wheelbarrow (why they usually have pneumatic tyres, that always puncture or deflate, I don’t know). We also moved some of the unrotted compost & leaves from the side of the greenhouse and put it in bags to slowly rot down
We were able to use our refurbished wheelbarrow to take them all to the back of the Church Hall where we intend to plant some fruit bushes when we get round to it
We also planted some onions sets – white Stuttgarter Giant and red Karmen which we planted in one of the raised beds. Some of our onions have over-wintered well in the other raised bed so hopefully we will get a succession of onions to pick later in the summer
Tony bagging up some of the semi-rotted compost
Geraldine & Tony having a chat about what to do next
Planting the onion sets
Spring is on its way
Spring is on its way in the Good Neighbours garden…….
Here are some of the group enjoying the spring like sunshine on the last day of February – Paulette, Bernard, Geraldine and Tony
We had ordered the three replacement panes of strengthened glass and John came to put those in. That, together with the 6 panes that we had put back the previous week meant that the greenhouse was now back to its complete self. Let’s just hope we don’t get gales like the ones we had in January again soon
We always make time to have a cup of tea and a biscuit
Peter who had been one of the first volunteers in the garden has recently moved to Preston, but on his visit to Manchester he came down to see how the garden was going and was very impressed
At the side of the garden, behind the church is a narrow passageway
At the far end it widens out and we thought that maybe we could plant some fruit bushes that can take it being a bit shady (though as you can see it does get some sun)
Here is Tony spraying the weeds to clear the ground before we try to find out how best to enrich the soil and plant some bushes
CGN Greenhouse – repairs after the gale
Repairs after the gale
This Friday (19-02-14) we had John’s assistance in beginning to repair the greenhouse after the damage caused by the recent gale. Altogether 9 windows were blown out and 3 of them smashed. So the reinforced glass stood up pretty well and the pieces of glass weren’t dangerous shards but like the starred bits from a shattered windscreen
John putting in the butterfly clips to hold in an intact window pane being replaced in the greenhouse
Another pane of glass ready to go back in
Geraldine and Bill inspecting the newly planted seed trays
One of the angled pieces of glass that survived being put back into place
Bill carrying a watering can ready to water the seedlings
Tony looking ascsheerful as ever
Newcomer Tom and CGN worker Diane inspecting the greenhouse
Bill collecting some of the finished compost ready to put on the raised beds
Garden Club surveys the storm damage
Storm Damage
The great storm of 13th Feb 2014 will certainly be remembered in Manchester. With winds of over 70 mph buildings were damaged and trees were blown down all over the place. When we came for the Good Neighbours gardening group meeting on Friday 4th Feb we found that the greenhouse has been damaged with 9 or 10 panes of glass blown out of the greenhouse
Bill looking through one of the broken panes in the greenhouse after the storm. Fortunately because the glass was toughened it appeared that only one had been smashed. Even though the other panes had been blow out and were scattered around they appeared to undamaged
Contemplating the storm damage
Two top panes of glass are missing as you can see at the right of this photo
Tony looks for missing clips and pieces of rubber that might come in useful when we try and repair the damage
Tony shows all the intact panes of glass that were blown out by the wind, but managed to come through the storm unscathed
The day wasn’t all bad news though. We now have a new part-time gardening club coordinator, Geraldine Wall who joined us today.
Here is Geraldine the new CGN Garden coordinator on the left with Bill and another new CGN suoort worker, Diane Dixon on the right. Diane came along to see the garden group in operation in her first week in post
Diane Dixon
Today Geraldine gave us her views on compost. We braved the elements to inspect the existing wooden compost bins before we scurried indoors to escape the rain
