News Archive
Bulb Planting in Gilesgate
On Saturday 25 November, 20 intrepid Kings volunteers got their hands dirty at the Kings Warehouse in Gilesgate planting bulbs in pots for giving away in the Spring. This is Gaz's report.
Stephen and some of the interns spent the previous week in a Wacky Races-esque caper around Durham and its surrounding villages searching out plant pots from church members and garden centres. By mid-week the problem had changed and there were now too many plant pots for the bulbs. So, rather ironically, the latter stage of the week was spent collecting more bulbs. Eventually we solved the bulb-pot continuum. However, working out how much compost and wood we needed took the expert eye of Mr. Light himself. The art of gathering materials to bulb plant en mass is, it would appear, a very intricate one.
The bulb planting itself took place on Saturday 25th at the Kings Furniture Warehouse. Our guess was it would take somewhere in the region of two hours to plant all the bulbs but, as a result of the number of people who turned up, we were finished by half past ten. Good spirits were not dampened by the cold weather and tea, coffee and donuts were served in the usual Sunday morning fashion.
In a world of gender-neutral tasks it made me smile to see how naturally we subdivided to do the work. The lads choosing to play/work with the compost and the girls planting the bulbs once the soil had been put in the pots. By our own admission we were the Kings Factory production line and a very efficient one at that!
Now, it’s just the waiting. For the bulbs to grow that is. However, watch this space for the second phase of the Bulb planting when we give the plants out to people in the Gilesgate area.