With much help from D, the Fairy Gardenmother, things are moving forward, albeit slowly.  The grant funding is still being sorted out, but I'm not allowing myself to wait for maybe-cash to get started this year.  I've grown in containers and limited spaces for years, so for now, that's what I'm going to do.

Strawberries are being moved to their own towers - I managed to get a bargain on towers which a rather posh garden-shop offered for nowhere near as much stuff as I managed to get, at well over double the price I paid for mine.  So score there!  I'm also being turned onto coir blocks and wormcast; sort of an insta-compost as I need it rather than letting it sit round in bags and lose their effectiveness.  The strawberry towers and raised bed will get a 50.50 treat with this stuff, as well as the compost I've managed to make over the year mixed in. 

I have some amazing people who are donating seeds and cuttings of their own plants!  Hurrah!  I now have plans of where to put these, even if some are just temporary and will need moved to more permanent places in the future.  My containers are going to be quite full and I can't wait!  And if that wasn't brilliant enough, I even have a cherry tree on the way, with a very awesome friend who will show me how to grow in one of my huge containers.  I'm overjoyed as cherries are one of our favourite fruits and they also tend to be extremely expensive, so I'm happy about this addition!

I received a call today from the local youth group who is offering to try and clear the rubbish heap in the back.  I will be SO grateful if they can help, I'm sick and tired of that huge eyesore and potential hazard.  It's a shame that they'll have to bag up the "compost" and get rid of it, but I wouldn't trust it to be non-toxic, let alone organic - I fished several cans of paint out of the pile when I tried to make some sense of it last year!  However, it might still be worth putting some plants into, even if they were just a flower bed for the time being.   

I'm going to go through with my threat/promise to get a growhouse for flowers as well as toms; I want to grow as many toms as I can this year and get a decent harvest for once!  Things always start out brilliantly for me and then summer ends somewhere around August and I have to content myself to a fair bit of green tomato chutney.  This year I'd like to be able to can up a fair bit of tomato sauce for my son's diet of pizza (and more pizza), so that's my mission.  And, naturally, more coir and wormcastings!

I will do what I can for the year; it may mean the leveling doesn't happen, or the paving - and it's still a concern, as I am getting less steady on my feet these days - but things will sort out eventually.  And for now, I'm going to get to growing.