Too long since we visited Redbraes but made up for it on a beautiful summer day when the Athens of the North felt a lot further south. We found Julian Siann watering pots of potatoes. After a long, cold spring the garden is bursting into life – or ‘going like a bomb’ as Julian puts it – but now the ground is need of rain as well as warmth.
“It’s been a tough start to the growing season,” says Julian. “We had such a long cold spell everything is very late and now
a long dry spell means it is hard to keep lettuces from bolting.”
But Redbraes, still basking in the success of last year’s Edinburgh in Bloom, is in good heart. Pink and white flowered strawberries cover one of the beds with a promise of good berries to follow. A smart new greenhouse (built out of recycled material by Davie Thomson) sports healthy looking young tomato plants.
And there’s expert help on hand once a month when Ben Dell from the Botanics comes to spend two hours working in the garden thanks to funding raised by Greenleith (Ben has also been helping to plant the new Children’s Orchard in Leith).
Redbraes is likely to be in the news again soon. Journalist Jenny Mackenzie also dropped by recently and is writing a piece for the Neightbourhood partnership bulletin.