Belhaven Community Garden

Last year we built a circular raised bed in Dunbar harbour, for the North Light arts project (see post for 10th June 2012). And this year, Belhaven Community Garden got in touch, asking if we'd do a similar thing for them ... you know how it is ... you build one circular dry-stone raised bed, and then everyone wants one ...

The community garden is in the grounds of Belhaven Hospital, on the outskirts of Dunbar. It's being developed with the involvement of various local groups, principally local sustainability group Sustaining Dunbar (http://sustainingdunbar.org/) and The Ridge (http://the-ridge.org.uk/). The Ridge are a group set up to promote and provide training in rural skills and food, and so it was agreed that we'd do this project as a joint practical day and training workshop.

The community garden covers a fairly large site, with various different areas under development - an orchard, areas for production of crops (both outdoors and in a polytunnel), and a scenic area which will be visible from the hospital itself. We were working in the sensory garden, which will be planted with scented and tactile plants. It's a circular design, and it's designed to be (eventually) wheelchair accessible

The intial plan was for the raised beds to be in the two part-circular areas in the centre, with a path wide enough for a wheelchair to pass between them. By the time we arrived to put in the raised bed, quite a lot of work had been done, with the outer bed planted and a willow fence put up around the outside.

After discussions with the original designer and consultations with all involved parties, it was decided to ammend the plan to have a single circular bed (the thickness of the dry stone walls would have meant that the actual area for planting would have been restricted, and dry stone isn't a particularly good medium for building sharp corners, especially if there's a high likelyhood of them getting knocked).

We had four volunteers from the branch (Dave, Alan, Emma - an artist currently based on Skye but who just happened to be in Dunbar this week working, by coincidence, with the North Light project - and myself), and three trainees (Kate from Ridge, local traditional wall-builder and repairer Peter, and Anna, a local artist with an interest in stone). The training was done by Richard, and once he'd given the trainees an introductory talk on the principals of building in dry stone, we got to work. By lunchtime, the first course was up all round, and a start had been made on the next level.

It had been overcast in the morning, but the sun managed to come out in the afternoon.

And by about three o'clock, it was all up.

Oh, and if any other community-based projects would like a dry-stone circular raised bed, whether in Dunbar or elsewhere, please do get in touch!