Cloches from Freecycle and Resurgence

Freecycle

It started in Arizona in the USA. Something called “Freecycle”. How it works is if you have something you don’t want anymore and it is still good, instead of giving it to the thrift store or the tip, you put it up on your local Freecycle Group (They are Yahoo Groups). The first person to respond to you gets the item, and then you have them meet you somewhere to give it to them. Also, you can ask for something on Freecycle as well.

Everything on Freecycle has to be FREE. It is not about bartering, but only about giving away (or recycling) things you don’t need or want anymore. It is lots of fun, and you get to meet new and interesting people. For more information, go to  http://www.freecycle.org.  Freecycle is all over the world now, and if there isn’t one in your area, you can start a group yourself. Freecycle helps you, giving you all the information you need. My local Freecyle group is in Nantwich and there was an advert for free barn cloches.

Cloches

Well it took me 2 seconds to bang out a reply and today I drove over to Malpas to collect them this morning.  I came back with a dozen glass barn cloches but I could have had more. Truth is that they have had many replies and I didn’t want to be greedy.

Resurgence

From the front a nice house in the country but at the back it was a different story. Some acres? of land with polytunnels, greenhouses and coldframes.

It is being run by a couple of really nice people, Paul and Ruth who have recently taken it on. They run a box scheme and are developing it into a training centre for organic growing and other skills. I was really impressed but a bit cross I didn’t have my camera with me.

They are giving away the glass cloches as they will be having children visiting and they could be a danger, plus they are a bit fiddly and time consuming for the scale of growing they are undertaking,

Paul showed me his two wheeled tractor – OK, I was jealous and we chatted for quite some time. He mentioned they were funded by Resurgence and I said ‘There used to be a great magazine called that, years ago”. Well the good news is that it is the same magazine / organisation but grown and developed. You can find the website at http://www.resurgence.org/

I’m going to ask if they want to send me more detailed information and publish it on here.

There was one awkard moment when Ruth asked if I was organic as they wanted the cloches to go to a good home. Was she serious? Should I admit that I’m not 100% organic? Well I confessed I wasn’t as green as I should be and from her reaction I think I failed to notice I was being ribbed a little.

Still, didn’t light up until I was driving up the road and out of sight!

Dropped the cloches off at the plot and straight back home.

Onions

The seedling onions are really in need of being moved on so into the greenhouse where I started transplanting late afternoon. It’s still really cold so didn’t get all done by any means. Moved the rest of the garlic to the coldframe to make room for the new trays and realised I’m going to need the second coldframe on the plot for the brassicas before I’m done. Before I do that, I’d best fix the lid.

Redcurrants

Val returned from shopping with 3 redcurrant bushes – 99p each at Aldi, so she grabbed them for me.

Camera

I dd take some photographs of the onion seedlings and the famous paraffin heater but the smartcard seems to be crrupted. maybe the camera which is playing up at odd times or maybe the reader messed it up. So more software to load before I finish tonight.

Funeral

It was the funeral for my mother-in-law yesterday. A freezing day but it went as well as these things ever do. She’ll be missed.