garden

The Mayfly, burgeoning coffee and cultural High Street hub, is turning some derelict land into, well, something else. A community garden? A mini-wildlife reserve? Butterfly haven? Part of a grand scheme to upgrade the whole of the cliff-face? It'll be up to those who get involved, said Piers Colby, le patron of The Mayfly and community catalyst.

On what had turned out to be  General Election Day, The Mayfly Garden Group welcomed Dr Ian Bedford and Dannny Suggit, Production Manager of PlantGrow Ltd

The Shed continues. We regularly meet on Wednesdays at 10am on land next to Lowestoft Station carpark.

For many years, the piece of land was a siding and cattle dock for the railway. We've found eleven posts. They are very robust – huge steel bars (possibly rail track) embedded in concrete. We have tried many ways of chopping the concrete off. We have failed. Up until now.

Pictured are the larvae of the brown-tailed moth. There's several colonies on the Land of Hope and Dreams. They look like spider-web nurseries, but they are actually “ … a silken tent”. Some will be pleased to know they eat the young leaves of brambles, amongst others.

The hairs on the larvae can cause irritation to the skin, about the same strength as a stinging nettle, and on rare instances can cause severe skin reaction and rash. So best not to give them a friendly stroke.

Great progress being made on community garden

Learn more https://gofund.me/aa2cd224

"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows." – Doug Larson This section has a list of Lowestoft Allotments, some community groups who are allotment focussed, and some contact details.    Community Groups like allotments - they produce food, but more importantly, they grow people.   Women Like Me Community Care Farm Pathways Care Farm is just up the road too   Local Allotments For details of allotments in the Lowestoft area, please contact the Lowestoft and District Allotments Association (L&DAA) on 07778 516304. Added: 23 September, 2023

Allotments
"A weed is a plant that has mastered every survival skill except for learning how to grow in rows." – Doug Larson

"A cauliflower is a cabbage with a college education." by Mark Twain

This section has a list of Lowestoft Allotments, some community groups who are allotment focussed, and some contact details.

Community Groups like allotments - they produce food, but more importantly, they grow people.

A chance to meet up and get free bulbs - see you there

** also on Sunday **

Over fifty people were lucky enough to get free seeds and compost this weekend, courtesy of Most Easterly Community Group.

'Help Make the High Street Bloom' gave away seeds for people to brighten up their windowsills and balconies and gardens. So later in the year there will be new begonias and sunflowers and even radishes greeting the sun, not to mention glorious cornflowers and rampant ranunculus.

From seedlings great things can grow

In April I was one of the happy recipients of Most Easterly's great seed giveaway.

A sunflower seedling, a strapping 2cms of natural power. I re-potted it, and put it on my window-sill.

It's now over a metre tall, and two days ago the flowerhead started to develop. 

"It is a form of Fermat's spiral. The angle 137.5° is related to the golden ratio (55/144 of a circular angle, where 55 and 144 are Fibonacci numbers) and gives a close packing of florets." (Wikipedia) 

North Lowestoft Men's Shed has finally begun turning a dream into reality. Not quite the reality we expected, but nevertheless a huge stride towards our final goal.

Within a couple of months, we hope to be staring out from the door of a container at a piece of land we can transform into a community garden or wildlife garden, wondering how we're going to do it!

The area is the piece of scrubland betwixt Lowestoft Station car park and our ultimate goal, the building next to the signal box in Denmark Road.