What a Summer!!!

Well we've had an incredible summer at Dig Deep, despite the weather. The wheat field has grown fantastically, some frogs have arrived in our pond and our clay bricks have cured in the newly rebuilt cob oven. 

Volunteer Frances inspects the wheat field in spring for signs of rust and weeds.

Our pond acquires its first resident

The newly rebuilt cob oven

Volunteers Steve, Lel, Frances, Gary and Annie proudly show off the clay bricks they've made using a brick former constructed by Volunteer Neil, It works a treat!

The wheat has finally grown ears, watch this space for harvest time.

A group Photo taken when Volunteer Russell (Tall chap at the back) had his last day with us.

It's always sad to see a friend leave the group but we were very happy when our resident frog had brought his chum along for a swim!

Gardeners Question Time at Dig Deep


Last Wednesday night at ASCEND, we were delighted to welcome Radio 4 Gardeners Question Time. Chairman Peter Gibbs visited our Dig Deep gardening project and was very impressed with the horticultural achievements.  The panel of Bob Flowerdew, Matthew Wilson and Christine Walkton answered lots of gardening questions with great knowledge and wit.   Peter Gibbs visited the plot and was blown away by what we have achieved.
Tune your radios to BBC Radio 4 on the afternoons of 1st and 3rd of June, when you will be able to hear the programme. 


Dig Deep Volunteer Russell (centre) with Farming For All's Jude and Ali (Right) and Matthew Wilson and Bob Flowerdew (left)

Allotment Panorama taken this spring!

Wheat Field

We took on the challenge set by the real bread campaign to “Bake our own Lawn” http://www.sustainweb.org/realbread/ this involves planting our own wheat, milling it and making bread that we can bake in our clay oven.  We have planted Amaretto wheat provided by St Albans farmer Howard Roberts and the first shoots have begun to appear.

Redbournbury Mill in St Albans (which is a mile from Howard’s farm) has also agreed to mill the wheat for us and let us visit the mill for tea and buns with a guided tour on 07^th June. We will also be visiting the farm that day where we will see the workings of the farm then walk through the fields down to the mill for our tour in the afternoon. Watch this space for the finished results!

Watford FC Business Club Corporate Day

We had a fantastic corporate day on 15^thMarch with members of the Watford FC Business Club. They helped us to dig over the area for our wheat field. It was full of broken glass, rusted metal and a lot of rocks. They also helped plant vegetable seeds and flowers across the plot. Dig Deep Volunteer Russell (above) led an activity to help clear an area of woodland space to plant wild flowers seeds including Cosmos to encourage bees to the plot. There were members of Watford Football club present who also helped on the day. One time Watford FA Cup finalist player Neil Price made tea for all the team.

Team Building Day

Dig deep hosted a fantastic team-building day on 17^th April. We built a Cob and woven willow planter to provide more growing room for mint that was propagated by the Dig Deep volunteers last October. One of the students attending was originally from the Gambia and was able to adopt traditional house building techniques used there to build the planter. We mixed grass with clay and water and trampled it together linking arms and using our boots as a mixing tool. We even sang a traditional Gambian house building song as we worked.

5 Students attended the day and built a smoker and smoked meet, cheese, olives and nuts over the course of the day. They also built a fire and cooked sweet potatoes, corn on the cob and mackerel fillets for their lunch. The day was a great success.

A Little History of Dig Deep.....

Taking Root Cuttings from Mint:

We have two huge pots of mint on the plot, planted last year. We put them in pots to stop them running wild and taking over large areas of growing space. We decided to take root cuttings from most of the plant to create lots of smaller plants. Two large plants propagated = 40 new mint plants!!

Dig Deep volunteer Tony is propagating the Mint. He's using secateurs to cut the roots into finger length pieces and planting up horizontally in small pots of compost.

For taking root cuttings of mint and other hardy perennials check out the gardeners world website... we like this one:

http://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/projects/propagating/how-to-take-root-cuttings/279.html

For more information on propagating herbs we like the Royal Horticultural Society's website. Here's the link:

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=639

Dig Deep Wormery.........

We built our first wormery last year with the help of corporate volunteers from 3 Rivers Council.
The initial design took onboard what we had on site that could be utilised and recycled to our benefit. The result.... some old tyres, dustbin lids and old fence posts. Dig Deep Volunteer Frances brought in some very useful plastic matting which would act as the inner layer to stop the worms taking up residence between the walls of the tyres.

The Design.....

The Construction....

Farming For All's Hugh (Right) and Dig Deep Volunteer Jason discuss the best strategy for fitting a dustbin lid inside a tyre.......

Jason suggests a tea break.........

Jason and a volunteer from 3 Rivers Council finally get the dustbin lid inside the tyre. The posts are in place to hold the wormery off the ground. We did this so we could have a tap fitted to the underside of the wormery to collect the 'Liquid Gold',  a byproduct of the worms eating their way through the food scraps we put in. The 'Liquid Gold' is coveted by prize winning vegetable growers and used to grow giant tubers and has to be significantly watered down (10/1) to use on the allotment..... Come on worms!!

150 Tiger worms await rehoming in a specially constructed worm Hotel!

The Dig Deep and 3 Rivers Volunteers line up behind the completed wormery. The lid is on, the worms are in and there's plenty of food and wormth inside....... Fingers crossed the next instalment will be trying the tap in a couple of months for our first taste of 'Liquid gold'......mmm

Welcome to our Blog. We hope you'll drop in from time to time and read our updates. Dig Deep has been growing for the past 2 years, but we've only recorded what we've been up to sporadicly.  We hope this Blog will shed some light on the week by week running of a busy allotment site. We'll update it regularly with pictures, recipes, successes, harvests, videos and general information to keep you all up to date........Watch this space!