The 1,000 Bulb Challenge!
Let’s see if we can plant 1000 bulbs from March to May 2014 – that means now!
1. Your invited to come along to our new “Growing Sunday afternoon sessions” at 2pm when we’ll be planting bulbs , along with other activities. To start this off we’ve bought 140 bulbs ready for you to plant now.
2. Or please feel free to plant some bulbs yourself at other times. If unsure what to do etc then just ask us.

How to Plant a Bulb:
• Plant Bulbs to a depth of roughly 3 times their size. Squirrels can dig them up if shallower than that.
• Plant bulbs facing up , if not sure plant on their sides.
• How about some Tulips in the Meadow part and Bluebells or Snow drops under the trees along Clouston Street (soil is very good there) and in The Children Wood. But feel free to choose what bulbs you like and where (native ones only though). Near the entrances would be another good place.

Community consultation i.e. a question for you.
The issue: this last two years the middle part of the Meadow has got quite muddy. It’s been a mixture of more use and some of the events that have been staged on that part. Basically it’s not had a chance to recover.

The recommendation: we’d like to plant wild flower meadow grass seed on that muddy area and the advice we’ve been given is for the first6 weeks after the seed is put down the area should be fenced off.
Four important points:
1. Only grass seed that is friendly to wild flowers will be sowed, it will have a little wild flower seed mixed in. Other kinds of grass seed would destroy the flowers we have (not all grass seed is the same, many kinds outcompete flowers).
2. The fence would only be in a small area and it’s expected to simply be a few wooded poles with one or two lengths of string between. More to stop humans walking on it.
3. The fence would only be temporary, probably for 6 weeks. Everyone agrees they don’t want things fenced off and so this would be a temporary exception to that principle.
4. Note we may fence off a smaller area and then6 weeks later move the fence and sow again. This will free up more area at any one time. However we need to sow before it become too dry.

This is your chance to give feedback on the above. So what do you think? Please email northkelvinmeadow@gmail.com Due to the time of year we are keen to get started on this soon, assuming people don’t object. Dated 12th March 2014

Growing North Kelvin Meadow
We’ve kicked off a dedicated group to considerate on all things “community growing”. It’s got its own facebook page called Growing North Kelvin Meadow (bet you guessed that! 🙂
• We’ll meet every Sunday at 2pm on the Meadow.
• We’ll be building a new Community Raised Bed (s), so if your into growing vegetables this is for you.
• We’ll tend and expand the Orchard along the fence line at Kelbourne street side, plant bulbs, wild flowers, help Bumble bees and other routine maintenance to help the land flourish.