I might have mentioned that a small group of us in Jedburgh were interested in growing food around the town. This conveniently falls within the social domain of the Fallow Land Project. Vegetable planters here and there that anyone can access when the plants are ready to pick.  Some call this guerrilla gardening (which would seem to be out of kilter in the Tory Borders) but we can look at it as enabling fallow communities to spring into life, an exploration of the fallow commons and so on. Our working title is Get Jed Fed.

Placing planters around the town seems to be feasible and straightforward. There’s strong support from the council and the community generally with no real objections as long as we apply common sense.

The other idea of reviving the herb garden at the site of Jedburgh’s Franciscan Friary isn’t going so well. What we wanted to do was plant some herbs in the existing quadrants, as close as possible to the original garden, and make the place more beautiful for citizens and visitors to enjoy. But because it’s an archaeological site there’s some confusion as to who’s responsible for the upkeep, who should be maintaining it and whether or not townspeople can have some agency in replanting and improving the site which is, to be frank, at the moment somewhere between a dog toilet and a skip. All above my pay grade but let’s see how things pans out over the weeks ahead. 

Here are some pictures of how things stand. The box hedge surrounding the herb quadrants is blighted and the fruit bushes at the back need attention. Above and beyond simple growing the whole site needs a lot of love. Some of the archaeological features have been vandalised and need replaced or repaired. The signage could be done with a facelift and the decking platform, which offers views of... the decking..., would benefit from being re-designed with more benches installed. A more welcoming entrance and it could be a very special place to sit and read a book or play your guitar in the fine weather.