Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 25

2015 - A Good Year!

Saturday was our last official work session for 2015 and what a great one it was too!  

The pond ready for lining

The quiet zone - comfy!

Our new willow arch bike parking

The quiet zone really took shape and we were able to finally put in the seating and planter, which makes it look really cosy and inviting.  Only the shed to finish now.

The pond's ready for in-filling with topsoil and carpet first thing next year and should be fully lined and ready to go by the end of Jan - ready for all that winter rain.  

Our new bike parking area's complete.  We've planted some willow saplings in the hope that we can weave an arch over the bikes for cover and protection. It should also look gorgeous. 

  

The entertainment shelter takes shape

Work on the entertainment shelter started in ernest and the framework is now complete.  Pallet flooring, water harvester ceiling and bannister rails to be added in the New Year.

The kid's zone, recently our bulb planting area, has now been tidied and a makeshift weed membrane laid down over the section marked for grass seed next spring,  Hopefully this will mean a quick hoe over before seeding instead of a major dig.

The kids zone waiting for grass

The kid's zone from the main gates

A great big thank you to everyone who came along to work, deliver cake, give advice or shared a few words of encouragement - we really appreciate it all!

See you all in the New Year - enjoy!

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 24

Garden Hero 11 - Kevin Harris

Kevin lives on Sprowston Road and is the man responsible for the amazing film of our hoarding artwork in progress.

He's also turned out to be a dab-hand at paving and started working on pathways in the kid's zone with Jo, Mike and May and is now working with Peter paving the area around the pond to make it wheelchair accessible.

Kevin's attention to detail and desire to get it just right is bordering on the fanatical - just the way we like it!  Not only does he turn up for most of our Saturday sessions but he's been known to pop in during the week too.  Star!

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 25

Gates A Go-Go!

Belated but special thanks go to Keiran, Dara and Bill  who spent a good few hours fixing the entrance gates on Earlham Grove a few weeks ago.

The gates had never shut properly and the job wasn't quite as straightforward as it looked - the gates are very heavy and only had a wobbly post to hang on to. 

The guys reinforced the post and put a wheel on the bottom of the right-hand gate to take the strain off of the post.  The  left-hand gate also has a new drop bolt to replace the one stolen during the break-in in the summer, which holds it nice and still.    

The higher left gate means that you no longer have to use a length of metal as a wedge to raise it to line up the padlocks.  I for one won't miss trying to raise the gate with one hand (and foot) whilst bashing at the hasps with a hammer to get them closed!  

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 24

Inside Out

As you're probably aware the hoarding blew down during the heavy winds and rain Sunday night just over a week ago.

Member and regular building volunteer, Kevin, who lives overlooking the garden alerted Myanah and a group of us gathered to see what could be done.  Much excitement ensued with the Fire Brigade in attendance and the police notified.  Everyone was waiting for an emergency team to come and make the area safe, which was done at around 8pm.

The wall was subsequently taken down on the Sprowston Road side as far as the old Victorian gate as it posed a risk to public safety.  The hoarding is being stored in the garden until we can put it back up - hopefully very soon and for good this time!  Meanwhile we're all grateful for everyone who's keeping an eye on the site for us - thank you.  

Building work is going on as usual and next Saturday (12 Dec) will be our last official day of 2015.  However, some of us might be popping in and out to do odd jobs between now and opening again next year (9 Jan) when we'll start constructing raised beds and seating.

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Garden Hero 10 - Peter Tymkow

Peter has rarely missed a week at the FGCG and has been instrumental in building our pond & accompanying raised bed -  measuring, cutting and bolting away week after week.  The pond is now known as Peter's Pond and we may even give it a name plaque!  Peter is known for his quiet determination and dry humour.  He has a background in nature conservation and has valuable experience working with other groups such as ours including the Stave Hill Ecological Park (www.tcv.org.uk/urbanecology/stave-hill-ecological-park) .  Peter was also part of the team that volunteered to help with the Groundworks delivery way back in January.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 22

Well, That Caps It All!

Another slightly soggy building session this week, although nowhere near as wet as last week.  

Sola and his capstone

The final fencing for the kid's zone went in after much digging and pick-axe work by newcomer Sola.  As you can see there was no way a fence spike was getting through that lump of concrete (a jumbo capstone as you can see from the angled shape).  Thankfully Sola persevered and the spike Finally went into what was a rather large hole.  Just another day in the life of the FGCG and a good example of why all the planting will be in raised beds.

As you know the FGCG was originally a double-fronted Victorian villa, which was levelled and the rubble spread across the site. Over time the soil and plants took over but some of them are surviving in very shallow soil.  The Budleija forest is actually rooted on roughly 5cm of soil on top of paving stones.  Sometimes the terrain's helpful - when you discover existing paved paths for instance, but often it can make life tricky.  However, a bit of lateral thinking and/or elbow grease usually gets us where we need to be!  

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 21

Buggies a Go-Go! (October 2015)

The bike & buggy park in
the kid's zone

Another glorious day on Saturday.  The sun was bright and warm and we finished the month on a building high as well as a weather one.  We made real progress on the kid's area, which should be finished next week and the buggy and bike park's up and running thanks to Sophie and Isobel.  Mike's taken charge of completing  the kid's area, which has freed up some of the team for path planning and the quiet zone - Jo and Kevin are the king and queen of paving!  Peter continues to work his magic on the pond, which will be completed next week ready for paving.  The quiet zone boundary's going great guns thanks to two new volunteers, Keiran and Lucy, who bashed in fence posts with a sledgehammer for an hour after collecting more donated paving slabs in their van.

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 20

Garden Hero 9 - Michael Nash 

Michael is a local artist who is not only involved in the FGCG on a weekly basis, but also with the Forest Gate Arts Trail. Michael works with reclaimed material, in particular metal and a piece of his work is currently in the FGCG - we hope he’ll do more for us.  He’s been involved in all aspects of the FGCG so far and is happy to have a go at anything and everything, especially anything that involves metalwork such as repairing our chain-link fence.  Most recently he’s been contsructing the ‘living tyre wall’ in the kids zone and has a real talent for packing skips.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story - 19

 Garden Hero 8 - Veronica Jeans 

Veronica has a beautiful garden at home and an extensive knowledge of plants and gardening, but she’s also a very useful member of the building team.  She’s been responsible for uncovering a lot of the original paving around the edges of the site, which has saved us all a lot of time and effort in laying new paths.  She’s also been weeding, uprooting unwanted plants with a pickaxe, drives a mean wheelbarrow and is happy to turn her hand to any task.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 18

Chip ’N' Skip (October 2015) 

The chips

The skip

October’s turning out to be a very busy month.  We received our first load of bark chips from Keith Archer Tree Surgeons, which are steaming gently in this cold snap.  This batch will be used to provide a nice soft play surface for the kid’s area but we aim to use them over most of the site to cover the hardcore and fill in the dips and holes.

The gang

Also this month (Sat 3rd Oct) we managed to clear the large mound of debris accumulating in the centre of the site, filling our second skip! It was really good to have everyone working on the same project for a day - the tea break was particularly good as Darren Farr and his colleague from the Stratford Community Police and our lovely FGCG member, Barbara, provided cakes!

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 17

Garden Hero 7 - Jennie Gillespie

Jenie's a nurse and when she’s not training up baby doctors and walking her dog Wilma she’s working hard in the FGCG.  So far she’s put together the framework for our bottle greenhouse, helped with site clearance and hauled wheelbarrows of rubble around the site.  She’s also donated a bird table and bird bath to start off our upcoming bird box project for the quiet zone.

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Beds & Sheds (Sept 2015) 

The sentry box - sorry, shed

Jo, Jervine and those slabs

Peter 'the pond' Tynkow

               

It seems that after a few months of hard graft but little to show for it, everything in the garden’s suddenly taking shape.  The shed in the quiet zone is well under way, the raised bed that provides a floral backdrop to the pond is finished and the pond 's well underway.  The kids area is coming along in leaps and bounds and should be finished by the end of October.  If the weather stays with us (and we've been blessed so far) we should stay  on target for completion of major features by the end of the year - fingers crossed! 

Next year raised beds, furniture and tweaking.  

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 15

5 Tons Of Joy (Sept 2015)  

In preparation for Spring planting and because we had a small amount of funding, we decided to invest in some topsoil.  5 tons of glorious soil were delivered this month by Lewis from the London Lawn Turf Co. Roll on Spring! 

Unfortunately we can’t use donated topsoil for growing as we don’t know it’s history, but any soil given to the FGCG will be used for bedding in paving slabs and for evening out all the dips and holes throughout the site.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 14

Garden Hero 6 - Kerena Fussell 

In between being the Trustee of a theatre company and being heavily involved with Newham Cyclists, Kerena has rarely missed a week since the FGCG opened for building in May and has been instrumental in getting the water harvester up and running.  She’s now working on the book shed (shed come insect habitat, water harvester and plant box - no pressure!), which will be housed in the quiet zone.  Kerena’s had plenty of experience building with random materials on her allotment and is putting that experience to good use in the FGCG. 

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 13

 Kids Away! (August 2015)

This month we held a kids open afternoon.  It was a simple event with drawing, tattoos and games such as scoring points if you got the pebble in the pot, hopscotch and skittles. 

Fun & games

The kids also had great fun running around the Buddleja forest and climbing one of the giant ‘cotton reels’.  it was good to see the potential of the space and getting the kids' ideas on what they'd like to have in their area.  We also asked the kid's to draw the kinds of animals and insects they thought might be in the garden - we got a lot of spiders! 

The event went well and we'll be holding them every half term until the FGCG's open full time.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 12

Garden Hero 5 - Dennis Chipperfield 

Dennis has rarely missed a Saturday and always brings a smile and some local news to the FGCG.  He’s happy to turn his hand to anything and gives it his all every week.  Amongst other things he’s helped clear the pond area and the quiet zone, uprooted Buddleja, done some tree pruning and laid paving slabs in the kids area.  Dennis is known for his bike (rescued from a skip and with a tin can bottle holder), singing the occasional tune and for his snazzy hats!

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 11

Ponds Away!  (July 2015)


The summer's turning out to be a busy one as things in the FGCG really start to get going and thanks to the Aviva Community Fund we now have the money to purchase railway sleepers for our pond and raised bed.  We received the money at the end of last month and our regular volunteer Peter is pictured bedding in the first layer of sleepers for the pond after he and fellow volunteer Rob finished measuring, cutting and building the raised bed that forms the backdrop.  

The rest of the team are busy providing lots of rubble and topsoil for in-fill as they clear the rest of the site.  Nothing goes to waste in this garden - we recycle everything!

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 10

Water Water Everywhere. . .  (June 2015)

Kerena & Bill pulling their best
Bond moves

Now that the storage issue’s been solved we need to think about water as the garden has no mains water supply.  With just a rough sketch to go start them off Kerena and Bill managed to complete the water harvester this week, so let it rain, let it rain, let it rain!  

The water harvester just before
the guttering went on

The water tank was part of the haul from Groundworks and holds around a 1,000L so we need to hope for a nice wet winter.  We also plan to have water butts running off of the entertainment shelter and the book shed to make sure we have enough water to keep everything alive and healthy

Next job for this dynamic duo is the book shed in the quiet  zone.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 9

Garden Hero 4 - Bill Bremner

Bill is involved in many projects including the local Woodcraft group and Newham Cyclists (the Newham branch of London Cycling Campaign), but luckily for us he's found some time for the FGCG too.  Rarely seen off his bike Bill can literally turn his hand to anything and has been an absolute star in getting to grips with the water harvester and entertainment shelter.  At home he's built many a lovely thing - solar lighting globes and bottle walls to name a couple, so we'll not only be using his practical skills but also his creative ones.  

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 8

The Container Has Landed (June 2015)

Our main priority now is storage, so we asked Newham Council to provide a shipping container, which arrived on 15 June.  Now we have somewhere to store tools, safety gear, chairs and wheelbarrows  & a place to display the designs for the garden.  

The container is our ‘hub’ and will support the water harvester and the entertainment shelter.  We also aim to turn it into a real focal point by painting it to create a welcome area.

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Garden Hero(es) 3 - Don & Gill Lewis

Don and Gill are a welcome addition to the team, always enthusiastic participants in any task. Don hails from Wales and we haven't seen them since the Welsh victory so presume he's still celebrating!  Both he and Gill have been involved in clearing the site and even a damaged foot didn't manage to keep Don at home.  They've also said that if anything needs doing during the week we should let them know - there's dedication for you.  

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 6

From The Community, By The Community (May 2015)

Our horde of fencing, edging
and planking

Our stockpile of paving slabs

As you can imagine funds for the FGCG are scarce so we thought we’d asked the local community to donate building materials and were overwhelmed with people’s generosity.  We’ve also become quite good at scavenging from skips and building sites!

The materials include plant boxes, wood, paving slabs, old sheds, plants, dustbins, compost bins, watering cans, water butts and drainpipe - enough to build a garden!

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 5

Garden Hero 2 - Jo Barker 

When asked what she does for a living Jo jokingly (we hope!) replied “If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you”, but in between spy missions Jo manages to make it to help out most weeks.  She’s always more than happy to do whatever we ask.  Most of the time we have her working in the kids area and she’s currently creating paths, which involves a lot of heavy paving slabs and tree roots - nothing she can’t handle!

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 4

From Humble Beginnings (May 2015)

This is the site shortly after we got the lease.  Making a garden feels like quite a daunting task at the moment but everyone’s incredibly positive and enthusiastic and work has started in earnest.

                   

Lots of buddleja and a dead cherry tree -
not very promising

Armed with some initial sketches, a Blue Peter style model and a whole heap of enthusiasm we’re starting to clear the space ready for building. And already we’ve managed, fuelled by sugary foodstuffs, to fill our first skip!

Darren, Kate & The Bruderhoff Community
start clearing

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 3

Garden Hero 1: Mike Adefuye

Mike is probably one of our youngest Saturday volunteers at the moment.  As with all our volunteers he will attack anything you give him with enthusiasm.  He always turns up on site looking very dapper compared to most of us, but this doesn’t prevent him from getting stuck in to the latest task, whether it be digging out beddleja roots or taking up paving slabs.  He's also agreed to be a member of our Steering Group so will be getting even more involved.  

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 2

A Leap of Faith (January 2015)

The Groundworks team at Canning Town

Groundworks & FGCG Volunteers

Negotiations with Newham Council for the lease have taken almost 2 years to complete and when we contacted Groundworks  we were working on faith that the lease would indeed be finalised and soon. 

Groundworks collect, recycle and distribute materials from various construction sites including the Olympic Park after the Games.  All manner of stuff is stored on a vacant site in Canning Town and we went armed with our shopping list.  Transport is always an issue but Groundworks kindly agreed to deliver the materials with the help of some of their volunteers.  A group of FGCG volunteers were also on hand both at Canning Town and the garden to help with loading and unloading our hoard.  We managed to get 3 trucks full of goodies including river rocks, plastic sheeting, astro-turf, a pair of rocking benches and paving slabs, which will all go to good use.  

Loaded with goodies and ready to roll

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 1

As you’re probably aware we’ve been holding regular Make The Garden Grow sessions on Saturday mornings to get the FGCG ready for planting in spring 2016.  There’s a lot of planning and construction work going on behind our marvellous hoarding and we thought it might be a good idea to keep a record of progress and note how far we’ve come.  

We thought we’d also introduce some of our regular Saturday volunteers (or Garden Heroes as we like to call them) who’ve been grafting away building the various sections of garden, literally ‘making it grow’ from a mishmash of donated and scavenged materials, which is challenging to say the least.  

The team's developed a regular routine which involves signing in, donning gloves and hi-viz before looking at the weekly work sheet pinned to the inside of the container door.  We try and have tasks that cater for everyone whatever their skills and abilities so hopefully there’s always something for everyone - even if it’s only a word or two of encouragement.  After choosing a task it’s all hands to the pumps.  Using a combination of muscle, brains, good humour, teamwork, the odd song and plenty of cake we’re making steady progress!

Please follow these posts and see what we've been up to.  

FREE HARVEST PARTY

Celebrate Harvest round the world with us at the Forest Gate Hotel on Saturday September 26th, 5pm to 9pm. Bring your own Harvest dish to share - feasting, music and fun.

The Big Paint

Come along on Saturday September 12th and Sunday September 13th between 11am and 3pm to paint the Garden fence. Local artist Jim Valenrtine has produced a beautiful design for us to fill in. Bring a 2" to 4" paint brush if you can, and wear old clothes.

LATEST NEWS // Successful application for Capital Clean-Up Grant

More great news – we were successful in our bid for a Capital Clean Up Grant and as such have an additional £1,250 in our coffers to spend on the garden. Thanks to everyone involved in the bid, especially Myanah Saunders who has put an amazing number of hours into applying for funding on behalf of the garden.

LATEST NEWS // Fingers crossed for our pond...

Thanks to everyone who voted for us for money from the Aviva Community Fund for our pond. We got nearly 2,000 votes, which is testament to the brilliant community of Forest Gate pulling together to help make great things happen and support our vision. This means we are definitely in the running for funding subject to checks

See our Facebook and Twitter sites, plus this blog, for more news on this and other funding soon. We're applying for as much as we can from various sources so that we can make the best garden possible.

Go Team Forest Gate! We hope to bring you frogs and newts very soon!

PS If you are good at or experienced in funding applications we'd love to from you as we need all the help we can get – room on the Steering Group for you...

LATEST NEWS // Come help create the garden... every Saturday 10am-1pm

Now we have our lease, we can really get stuck into creating the garden – but we need your help. Come join us on Saturday morning 10am-1pm and let's see how much we can get done over summer

So exciting that we can now organise regular site days in the garden so Members can get stuck into some digging and planting. As long as we have enough free Steering Group Members in town to supervise, we now hope to do this every Saturday morning between 10am and 1pm.

We are also hoping to run a 2-hour session during the week so let us know when would suit you. We will then pick the most popular time. Email info@forestgate-community-garden.org with your days and times.

Our first session went really well and was also great fun as usual (see all the smiling faces in the pics below). Led by Rob Beazley, we cleared a space for a greenhouse and found a perfect piece of hardcode exactly where we wanted it (the sun is smiling on us); we also found a freshly dug foxhole!

The site was also cleared and checked ready for the arrival of our shipping container hub on Monday 15 June, which will serve as our dry area and meeting place – thanks to Lisa Eller for sorting out all the logistics for this, can't wait to see it in place.

If you'd like to join our team or amazing gardeners, you just need to be a Member of the garden. It's easy to sign up and only £2 for lifetime Membership. Simply click JOIN US on our website.

Here's some pics from last Saturday's gardening meet to inspire you including Rob Beazley (top left) and Isobel and Jess (top right). Thanks to Lloyd Jeans for these images and many more over the course of the garden's emergence and creation.

See you all in the garden soon!

Space for our greenhouse, amazing that the hardcore was already there just where we wanted it!