This week we visited our plots at TARAGGAN and decided it was too cold to get the tools out, so our volunteers had a look at the space we have and how we can best utilise our plots.

Sophie wants to grow sweetcorn, Morgan wants to grow carrots, Sam wants to grow beans, Chris wants to grow potatoes, Anthony wants to grow courgettes, and Gethin would like to grow grapes.  On this day, we visited Woodfields Nursery garden centre in Ystrad Mynach to purchase the seeds for these items, plus seeds for broccoli and beetroot.  We can’t wait to see the results, and we’d like to thank John from TARAGGAN for giving us give us the best advice and help, as always.

This week Caerphilly People First Volunteers have been hard at work on their garden plots, planting broad beans.

Broad beans are packed with a whole host of vitamins and minerals, and including them in your diet can be beneficial to your bones, brain function, and immune system. Broad beans take 16 to 20 weeks to reach maturity and can be planted from February onwards, for harvest throughout the summer.  We are looking forward to picking them and eating them when the time comes.

Caerphilly People First Volunteers are at TARAGGAN Educational Gardens & Nursery in Gilfach every Tuesday morning from 10.30am onwards, so feel free to pop along if you would like to get involved.

Yesterday the group took part in a couple of healthy outside activities.  During the morning we restarted work on our allotment at TARAGGAN Educational Gardens & Nursery after the winter break.  It was lovely to see John again and we’d like to thank him for tending to our plot throughout the winter.  Our volunteers couldn’t wait to get back to their tools and prepare the plot to plant broad beans next week.

Lunch was followed by a brisk walk in the beautiful sunshine.  Connecting with nature and working outdoors is so important and has so many physical and mental benefits.  Our members have been looking forward to this day, and really enjoyed it.

Our volunteers meet at TARAGGAN every Tuesday at 10.30am, so if you would like to get involved please get in touch.

This week we made our final visit of the year to TARAGGAN (Tenants and Residents Association Green Gym and Nursery) Educational Gardens & Nursery in Gilfach. We’d like to thank John for all his help and for teaching us so many new skills; we really appreciate it. The project restarts in February 2023, and if anyone would like to join us then, please email enquiries@caerphillypeoplefirst.org

We recently attended TARAGGAN Educational Gardens & Nursery in Bargoed, where it was lovely to catch up with John and continue working on our plot at the allotment. Everything we planted was ready to be harvested so we were very busy digging up cabbage, beetroot and leeks. Leeks are fairly frost tolerant so you can delay harvest until after the first few frosts. Over the next few weeks we will be turning over our plot to make it ready for when we restart our project next February.