bring food to share, hot drinks provided

extending the excellent work of last winter’s raised bed building weekend we’ll be building another set of raised beds using the hugel technique (burying logs into the subsoil to raise soil level for improved drainage, and to provide a slow-release source of nutrients). These beds will allow us to expand our work with Revive, an organisation that supports asylum seekers and refugees. Revive members have been coming to our weekly workdays (every Wednesday) for nearly a year now, growing their own food in the beds that we built last year.

come and learn more about hugel technique, practice your carpentry skills, dig for victory (?!), get active to beat the autumn blues etc etc

should be a good weekend, tell your friends, see you there!

Tom/theHEAP

the HEAP is hosting a free course on permaculture and how to grow food sustainably in an allotment setting.

ideal for anyone interested in growing food, sustainability, vegan organics and permaculture.

the course will be led by Angus from the Manchester Permaculture Network and Kirsty from the HEAP and Birchfields Forest Garden and will last two days. Bring vegan food to share, drinks provided.

places will be limited and we’ve already had quite a bit of interest so please book early to avoid disappointment.

contact info@theheap.org.uk for more info and to book your place

We built the frames for a set of raised beds at the front of the plot, topped up the woodchip on the paths, prepared beds for planting and generally melted the frost with the heat of our allotment excitment…

more photos to follow!

Manchester Asylum Action came to the HEAP for a session of planting broad beans, harvesting french beans, painting signs and roasting potatoes and squash in the fire

Over the week-long course 36 people came to the HEAP to learn, experiment and build, and by the sunday we (nearly) had a finished structure.

here’s a few pictures of the structure:

applying lime plaster to the cordwood below the low work surface

front view before lime plastering

sanding down the cordwood under the work surface

•   Designing with natural materials
•   Cobbing, cob oven and rocket stove heated bench
•   Building Strawbale walls
•   Stone walling
•   Cordwood/ recycled bottle walls
•   Lime plastering 
•   Thatching Wood tile and  Cob floor

 Now we are fully equipped to move ahead with building our own cob structure, including cob oven. Contact us if you want to get involved.                                     “Cob is gentle on the planet,” … “It reduces the use of wood, steel and toxic building supplies. Buildings are solar oriented and energy efficient, warm in the winter and cool in the summer, no air-conditioning is needed, and minimal heating is required due to the exceptional thermal quality of the cob.”