Making our community a better place

Planters

The early morning mist had lifted and the grass was still wet from rain overnight. However, it wasn't long before the volunteers began to emerge, to congregate on the field off Wellhead Lane and consider the task ahead of them.

Three large potato storage crates (one full of soil washings from the spuds) and a tonne bag of fine compost, awaited their arrival. The crates and soil had kindly been supplied by Branston Potatoes Ltd and the compost by Steve Dickinson (Embsay Cottage). It all looked so straightforward, with the items sat there in the field, but to get these in place at their chosen locations required a little bit of thought.

There was much discussion about how the task was to be tackled, with various views and suggestions put forward and a plan slowly emerged. All that remained was for the crates to be put in place at the three entrances to the village and then filled with rubble for drainage purposes and then topped up with the soil and compost. Sounds easy doesn't it when you say it like that?

The first job was to get the large planters transported to the various locations, one for Wellhead Lane, one for Main Street and the last one (which was still full of soil) to Potterhanworth Rd. Fortunately for us, John Kania had brought his Volvo XC and trailer to transport all the heavy items to site. With a 2.4 turbodiesel engine this motor had no trouble at all pulling a trailer loaded up with eight wheelbarrows full with soil and compost - we would have been lost without this.

The first two crates were delivered to site and then the search for rubble began. We had been given permission to extract the waste rubble from the skips being used for the school and Church renovations and it wasn't long before all the wheelbarrows were filled and loaded onto John's trailer.

A few trips were required before the two crates had sufficient depth of drainage. Meanwhile, the remaining crate had to be emptied before it could be transported. Some volunteers had remained 'back at base' to dig this out as the 'rubble team' were doing their job. This was back-breaking work leaning over into a crate and shovelling earth onto a tarpaulin. As the soil 'washings' from the spuds had been sprayed with fertiliser in the fields, the smell from this was quite ripe but it did clear the nostrils!

With the remaining crate empty, it was transported to Potterhanworth Rd and the whole process of rubble, soil and compost was started all over again. By now the operation was running smoothly and it didn't take long to finalise the task. We will require a little more soil and compost to top-up the crates, to counter settlement and then they can be planted up. This should make a lovely display for the entrances to Nocton in the forthcoming Spring. A worthwhile job taking just over 4 hours work.

A big, big thanks go out to those who gave up their time to help:

Steve and Jilly Burr
Jim and Ruth Eagle
David Glew and Dominic
Geoff and Maria Hall
Michaela Hall and daughter
John and Jane Kania
Julie Partridge
Ralph Timms
Roy and Sue Welch
MaryAnn Williams

Apologies now if I have missed anybody.
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