Companion Planting
We received a donation of garlic and decided to use them for a bit of companion planting. The IEL youth volunteers planted the garlic with the strawberries in the West Norwood Library courtyard. The garlic is said to deter spider mites. Now to see if it affects the taste of the strawberries at all!
Late planting of spring bulbs
The IEL Youth Volunteers are helping to maintain the beautiful and serene library space behind the West Norwood library. We have tidied up around the statue and the first of the benches. Upon cleaning up the leaves we discovered there was a little garden space under the trees. We received a donation of some spring bulbs and planted them in the garden behind the bench. We were sad to see a few of them were pulled up, likely by some local squirrels, but many remain and we hope they bring a bit of spring cheer to the back garden.
Litter pick
In our last session of the month we discovered quite a bit of litter had been dumped in the garden. We resolved to clear it out and help make the garden beautiful again! We picked a full bag of litter and the garden looks much better for it.
What’s happening in March
Maintaining gardens produces quite a bit of green waste. Such is the case with the West Norwood Library gardens and we need a place to put it. We were introduced to the Friends of the West Norwood Cemetery who have offered to take some of it for us (thank you!). However, in the long term we plan to build our own compost bins to take care of this waste and give us nice healthy compost to use in our gardens. We were very pleased to get permission from the Library to build these bins and we will be making them in our March sessions. We plan on having two compost bins and one leaf bin (great for providing ‘browns’ for our compost bins).
Who are the IEL Youth Volunteers?
The IEL Youth Volunteers meet Saturday mornings at the West Norwood Library and Picturehouse. This is a part of a pilot program with Lambeth Libraries providing youth with safe spaces to volunteer and contribute to their community. For more information on how you can join in and to see our meeting schedule, please click here.