West Ardnamurchan Community Garden - Update 1

Developments in the garden are well and truly moving on with pace since the last entry in the diary a month ago. Thanks to a lot of hard work from the community we now have a large vegetable patch ploughed, rotivated, limed, mucked and planted with a huge variety of root vegetables, salad crops, courgettes, pumpkins, squashes and beans.

On Saturday 19th June the Garden held an informal Open Day to see the progress made to date in the garden and to discuss the future plans for the project. It was a really good day with the youngsters taking part in a sunflower growing competition and everyone was invited to plant more vegetables. We estimate that about 30-35 people turned out to show their support, which is really really appreciated.

On Monday 28th June some special visitors, the pupils from Kilchoan Primary school, came to the garden and, after a picnic lunch, spent the afternoon learning about the garden and its aims and planting up their own designated area. They can now look forward to the next few months being able to take fresh produce back to their families knowing that they were responsible for its production. Next on our plans in the coming month is the raising of the poytunnel. If you would like to get involved, please keep an eye on the local notice boards or visit the website at www.westerlygardens.co.uk

On other matters, we are listening to all of the feedback regarding the garden and although the Community Garden is located opposite the Sonachan Hotel, it is also hoped that we will put up a second polytunnel in Kilchoan once the initial work on the Garden has been completed. However, to make this happen we need a commitment similar to the generous one we have had from Helen at the Sonachan. Therefore, if anyone has some land which they would be prepared to lease to the project for a minimum period of 10 years, please get in touch with a team member at westerlygarden@aol.com. We would really like to thank everyone who has come along and helped and we hope to see you again at the garden soon.

Rich van de Peer