Work’s about to begin, in restoring the car park, opposite the three plots rented by Riverside Community Gardens, to a condition suitable for its proper purpose.
This will involve clearing away the accumulation of residues of wood chip, manure, topsoil, compost etc., which have been delivered or stored on it over the years, along with all the weeds and scrub which have colonised that.
We don’t expect this work to take more than a few days. (It’ll be done by hand, by our excellent plot holder Mike.)
UPDATE: the work is now complete, and the car park available for normal use.
PPA Website Team
Why are we not tasking the community garden to do it?
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Hi Martin,
RCG’s sustainer, Cardiff Salad Garden, rent three plots on the south side of Road One. The car park’s no more to do with them than are any others on PPA site. RCG may “task” their volunteers to do whatever they might be happy to do, but it isn’t for PPAA to expect to take up their time and energies.
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Hello,
As a representative from Cardiff Salad Garden who are managing the RCG I hope you’ll agree we are slowing returning the garden from a slightly neglected state to a really thriving plot (as it has been in years previous). This is through the dedicated endeavours of many volunteers old and new and support from our staff.
We would have loved to do this clearing to the PPAA’s specification, we recently planted some raspberries there which we will try to rescue tomorrow. It would be great to be informed of such activities in the planning stage before they are about to commence as we are a friendly, supportive group who really want to do everything to improve our area and be of any help we can be to the allotment as a whole.
We recently planted a wild flower meadow on the opposite side of the parking area, next to the bees, and after a period of settling in, it will be a biodiverse area great for nature and also suitable for cars to park on. We have been trying to clear this area – aware it is not ‘ours’ but as a shared space it is easy for things to get dumped there and by us keeping it clear it helps the wider ethos of the allotments to keep areas tidy and rubbish free.
Thanks
Sophie
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Hi Sophie,
Thanks for your comment.
Yes, volunteers have remarked on the steady progress, commendable increase in activity, and in productivity, on the three plots that you rent, and we wish you every success in continuing this great work.
Regarding the areas that RCG occupy gratis, on a goodwill basis, that is, the site of now-demolished brick cubicles – on which your container office, storage, and beehives stand – and the narratively-shady plot in the corner, which accommodates your shelter, pond, and other facilities, everyone seems happy that these continue to be maintained and used as they have been for a long time.
The car park, however, falls into neither of those two categories, and has, ever since the Council approved it as such, been there for all plot holders on PPA to use as such.
It would be forgivable for relative newcomers to the site not to be certain of the dedication of that land, and perhaps to assume that its “verges” (in fact accumulations of various residues) were simply uncultivated areas like others on the site, but this isn’t so. Beneath them is the hardcore laid, we assume, by the Council, to facilitate car parking. So there shouldn’t be any planting of anything on it, but we understand how such a mistake could perhaps have been made.
PPAA warmly commend the recent clearance of waste previously stored in the car park, and, as you say, they don’t anticipate any problem from the grassed area that your volunteers have laid in its place.
Sorry if those raspberry canes have already been cleared, however!
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PS, Sophie
Mike is using the material to make a narrow bank, as a buffer between the cars and the occupied adjoining plot.
It would be nice to plant compact flowering, pollinator-attracting shrubs along the top of it when complete.
We have quite a lot of such cuttings growing in the PPAA poly tunnel, and when ready your volunteers could plant these if you like? Also is there space for further such shrubs to be grown on in your tunnels?
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