March 2018 Ferrymead Historic Park group

The Ferrymead Heritage Park Interest group kicked off prior to Christmas.
It has been a productive but slow few months since then. The park initially advised us we had a small budget, this became zero. Staff are very helpful and friendly but they run the park on the smell of an oily rag.
Our aim, having adopted the cob cottage and church garden, is to brighten these areas with more colour. The cob cottage garden is undone. The church garden also needs a boost. The plan is to produce, as near as possible, a colonial type cottage garden with the emphasis on vegetables. The early settlers also liked their flowers, it reminded them of home. Since losing our small budget I now have to rethink the original plans.
Members have kindly agreed to propagate plants and seeds. It would be good if we could produce a garden all year round so the expertise of all our members is needed. We have taken the turf off to create paths. We laboured to bring back rotted horse manure from the local riding school. We now need to install garden borders before digging over the compost, then planting.
I am slowly acquiring a collection of donated tools which can be stashed in a lock up at the park, it saves having to take our own each time. I am still looking for donations of garden forks and spades, a soft yard broom, any secateurs, small garden forks, small hearth broom and shovel, and most wanted a large hessian potato sack in which to store these items.
Diane Campbell