I went to see the garden on Castle Street. It’s not that hidden, but it definitely feels a bit magical to find it. When I was there I also met Ana, living in a house just next to it, who saw the garden keep growing over the years.

the trees have grown to about two metres tall. Ana says the plum tree didn’t bear much fruit this year due to an illness.

One of the neighbours has put in the raspberries three years ago, they have spread out nicely and bear fruit in the summer. I heard of a few more people periodically looking after the garden over the years apart from us, apparently including some guy who was into rewilding and thought it would be the coolest to see what happens with the place without human intervention.

There was apparently also a property developer interested in it, who applied to buy the land from the council and build flats there. He got rejected because there’s a community garden in the space.

This is how it looks like in January:

This guy is a champion in gardens without human intervention. It’s a weed, but flowers blue in the spring, and it currently keeps large patches green quite nicely, so I didn’t pull it out. It’s also interesting that it does so well there: it has one long thick root and a low base, which keeps it really firm in the (quite rocky) soil.

There are also a few herbs going strong in the garden. One (of the Italian ones, I’m sorry dear Internet to be failing you here but I don’t recognise it by name, I don’t use it in my cooking) forms an entire bush, and I have also found a single onion plant.

All in all, a beautiful place that will keep on giving us stuff. We’ll probably come for an event and plant a few more perennials this year, I am also considering some infrastructure for composting, to steadily build up the soil. Ana mentioned she’ll be planting onions in the corner, I’m all for it.