PICTURES: Volunteers transform overgrown allotment in Beauly into flourishing community garden
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The teapot is always hot on Wednesday afternoons, proclaims the sign outside the Beauly Community Garden.
Tucked away in a quiet corner of the village, this once-abandoned allotment has been painstakingly transformed into a blooming community garden by volunteers, some aged into their 80s.
Where weeds once flourished, vegetables and fruit interspersed with flowers now grow in abundance thanks to the collective efforts of green-fingered enthusiasts who showed off the results of their labours during an open day.
The site was taken over nine years ago by Beauly Cares which provides a range of activities and events for older members of the community.
The community garden project has not only led to the creation of a productive plot, it also enables people to enjoy the social and therapeutic benefits of being together in the outdoors.
The garden includes a polytunnel, a pond and all-weather wooden-framed gazebo while new fencing has now been put in thanks to funding from the Beauly Co-op store.
During the open day, visitors enjoyed tours of the site as well as refreshments including home baking. They were also buy to produce grown in the garden.
Volunteer Zane Wright said there were now about 14 volunteers helping to tend the garden which brings social benefits.
"People do as much or as little as they want," she said.
"That is the ethos.
"People are able to come in here by themselves and think, or be among people."
The volunteers are now planning ahead for the next stage.
"We are now looking to rethink the garden," Zane said.
"Going forward, we want to see what works and what doesn't work."
James McLardy is chairman of Beauly Cares which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
"The lunch club was the first thing Beauly Cares started and the community garden was the next thing," he said.
"It was high in weeds, thistles and docks and at first sight you would have thought it was almost impossible to do anything with it.
"We just got people who were willing to start chopping down the weeds and then we found all sorts of rubbish or things which hadn't been used for several years.
"The transformation has been incredible."
He outlined the social benefits of the garden.
"It is a way people can come together and do a bit however they want to," he said.
"You can come and do half-an-hour's work and have a cup of tea, or some people continually work."
Helen Macgregor, who started volunteering about a year ago, revealed the garden has also brought together young and older residents with a visit from the nursery children who were given cards with fruit or vegetables to find in the garden.
"We also planted flowers for them to take home to their mums," she said.
"We started from the beginning with seeds and so they can see the progress of the seeds up to harvest time."
