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.

Making The Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 7

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!

LATEST NEWS // Update from The Big L(a)unch on 7 June

Thanks to everyone who came to our Big L(a)unch on Sunday 7 June – it was a great success including food and fun in the sun, a play street, 30 new Members, site visits, fundraising for Nepal and over 250 visitors over the course of the day

Tying in with Big Lunches around the UK and to celebrate our official launch now we have the lease, we decided to organise a street party and site open day at 136 Earlham Grove. Headed up by Steering Group Member Isobel Matheson, we managed to close off the street around the site and inspire over 250 local residents, neighbour, supporters and friends to visit the garden, bring food to share, buy plants and generally make merry in the sun.

It was a wonderful day, not least for all the hard work that went into the event including liaising with the council to close the street, supervising safe visits to the garden site, preparing and serving food, running kids activities and organising a plant sale in aid of Nepal.

See below for some images of the day – we'll be posting more in our gallery soon plus check our Facebook and Twitter sites for regular updates of this and other events and happenings.

Thanks again to everyone who helped and came along – we can't wait to see you in the garden soon!

LATEST NEWS // We've got the lease!

Great news, we've finally got the lease for the Forest Gate Community Garden site. Check out the images below for the moment when Steering Group Members Lloyd Jeans and Myanah Saunders signed the official document on 21 May 2015. After two years of negotiations, a very exciting moment indeed! Read on for what it all means...

Lloyd holding the official document on 21 May 2015 – at last!

We now have the lease for 5 years with the proviso that after a year – so from 21 May 2016 – we are on 3 months notice from the powers that be at Newham Council. Which means we have a full year to knock our garden into amazing shape, while making it portable to transport to another site if we needs to (fingers crossed this doesn't happen but if it does we want to be optimistic and ready).Thanks to everyone who has been involved in the securing of the lease, both on the Steering Group and at the council.

Myanah signing the lease – a very exciting day indeed!

Big Lunch To-morrow

Come along to Earlham Grove on Sunday June 7th between 11am and 3pm.
The street will be closed for a shared lunch (bring something to share). Enjoy street games for the kids to, as well as free popcorn, a chance to do a tour of the garden site before we start work properly on it, order your FGCG T shirt, and bring a plant or seeds to swap - all donations to the Nepal Earthquake fund.
See you there!

LATEST NEWS // Enter our Hoarding Design Competition NOW! // Deadline 14 June 2015

Artist, designer, illustrator, art student? Or simply feeling creative? Enter the Forest Gate Community Garden Hoarding Design Competition. See your winning design on 60 metres of fencing around our garden in the heart of Forest Gate

It's exciting times for the Forest Gate Community Garden, as we sign our lease and begin to clear the site and create the foundations of our community wildlife garden. As well as the interior aspects of the garden, such as a central hub, pond and play area, we also want to create an engaging periphery to draw people in. This will take the form of a 60-metre-long mural, across the full extent of the exterior boundary of the garden from Earlham Grove and around to Sprowston Road in Forest Gate, London E7, currently painted bright blue. The garden – and hoarding – is located seconds from Forest Gate's main high street Woodgrange Road, and minutes from the main railway station, which will be part of Crossrail from 2017.

We need someone or a group of people to design our mural, which will then be painted onto the blue timber hoarding, by the Forest Gate community during summer 2015. In order to get the very best design for our hoarding, and give as many people as possible the opportunity to enter, we're launching a nationwide Hoarding Design Competition. All designs should be suitable to transfer onto the timber hoarding, to be painted by volunteers including children. Block colours and simple shapes are therefore ideal, but the theme of the design is up to you – obviously something that connects the hoarding with the garden, through its history, location of wildlife would be good. Designs should also include ‘windows’, peepholes from the street to the garden inside, a unique and inspiring element of the competition.

Judges include local and international artists, Forest Gate Community Garden Steering Group Members with creative, landscape, media and gardening backgrounds, and neighbourhood representatives. The deadline is 14 June 2015 and entry fee is £10 per design, with all proceeds going towards the creation of the Forest Gate Community Garden. For administrative reasons, we're accepting hard copies scaled to A1 size only, which will be non-returnable. However, we will be exhibiting shortlisted entries in a local space at some point in 2015. The competition is open to everyone, however under 18s can only enter as a group represented by an adult.

If you'd like to enter, find the full brief (in printable PDF format), along with design templates of the hoarding in PDF format and DWG (compatible with CAD and Adobe Illustrator), plus a poster for publicising within schools, colleges and art/design groups (low res and high res available for online and print). Use the templates to create your design digitally or print out to provide the outline for a manual design. Either way, you will then need to scale your design up to A1 size, and submit a hard copy at this scale as your competition entry – find more details on the full brief including images of the hoarding via Google.

Can't wait to see the winning design around our garden!

HOARDING DESIGN COMPETITION BRIEF & TEMPLATES 

Download the documents below for the full competition brief, design templates of the hoarding and information posters. Any queries, please email info@forestgate-community-garden.org.uk.

COMPETITION BRIEF
http://adobe.ly/1Hb8a0e

COMPETITION POSTER (LOW RES / ONLINE & EMAIL)
http://adobe.ly/1KWMx22

COMPETITION POSTER (HIGH RES RES / PRINT)
http://adobe.ly/1H9h4IN

HOARDING DESIGN TEMPLATE (PDF FORMAT)
http://adobe.ly/1Eo74XT

HOARDING DESIGN TEMPLATE (DWG FORMAT COMPATIBLE WITH CAD AND ILLUSTRATOR)
http://adobe.ly/1PbCOeb

LATEST NEWS // Help Us Win £1000 for a Pond

Vote for our Pond here

LATEST NEWS // Hugh runs in Hackney for the Garden

Steering Group member Hugh Barnard completed the Vitality RUN HACKNEY Half Marathon on Sunday May 10th in just over 2 hours. If you haven't sponsored Hugh already, there is still time to show your support. Put your donation in an envelope marked for FGCG together with your name and drop it into Number 8 Sebert Road (next to CoffeE7).
Thanks for your support, and well done Hugh!

LATEST NEWS // Enter the Forest Gate Community Garden Hoarding Competition

Keep your eyes peeled for an official announcement of the Forest Gate Community Garden Hoarding Competition – a great opportunity to see your artwork on full extent of the external fence, located at the heart of burgeoning Forest Gate.

The competition is open to everybody and will involve a design for the full length and height of the fence, including cut-out windows to view into the garden itself. 

Designs need to be submitted to the FGCG team by 1 June 2015 and the winning design will then be painted by the community on a subsequent date in Summer. There will also be an exhibition of the winning design and runners up.

Judges for the competition are Steering Group Member, landscape architect, urban designer and competition lead Jane McCarthy; Steering Group Member and local artist, writer and editor Sonya Patel Ellis; internationally renowned artists Alex Chinneck, Tom Ellis and Lothar Götz; and local councillor Ellie Robinson.

Keep checking in here, on our website and social media for more details of the competition including dimensions and templates. FGCG Members will be advised of the competition by email.

If you want to become a Member email us at info@forestgate-community-garden.org.uk or sign up here >

DATE FOR THE DIARY // The Big Lunch // 7 June 2015

With the final details of the lease confirmed and the final documentation just weeks away, we can start planning some official events. First up is the Big Lunch on 7 June 2015

The Big Lunch is a nationwide initiative, dreamt up by the Eden Project. The aim is to get as many people as possible across the whole of the UK to have lunch with their neighbours annually on the first Sunday in June in a simple act of community, friendship and fun. Since starting in 2009, thousands of Big Lunches have taken place in all types of communities. In 2014, 4.83 million people took to their streets, gardens and community spaces for the sixth annual Big Lunch.

This year, we're hosting our very first Big Lunch in the Forest Gate Community Garden and we'd love you to come. Rain or shine, we'll be making merry at 136 Earlham Grove and also hope to organise a Play Street on the road outside at the same time.

It should be great fun and is a great way to meet your neighbours and find out what the garden is all about. We also need some volunteers to help with lunch and festivities so if you have some free time on the day, we'd love to hear from you. Just email info@forestgate-community-garden.org.uk.

Can't wait to see you there!

LATEST NEWS // We need your spare wood, paving stones, bricks and fencing...

The next phase of the Forest Gate Community Garden is to create the hard landscaping areas including raised beds and the base for the container hub. We are accepting donations of these items on Saturday 9 May when the garden is open to volunteers helping out at our next site clear. 

Here's what we gratefully received at our last delivery from Members of the Steering Group plus the cherry blossom on one side of the garden in glorious bloom.

We also received planters, paving stones and pebbles donated by B and Q last year, tubing, a builder's bag and some guttering. All brilliant resources to help our garden come together.

A big thanks to all involved in donating, delivering, moving and storing goods.

If you have wood, paving stones, bricks or fencing you can donate then we want to hear from you. We will accept these goods on 9 May. Just email info@forestgate-community-garden.org.uk to arrange delivery.

EVENTS // Help out at the next FGCG Site Day on 9 May 2015

Want to help clear the Forest Gate Community Garden site, ready for the next phase? Got some spare paving stones, wood, bricks or fencing that you could donate to help us create hard landscaping such as raised beds and a base for our container hub? Join us on 9 May

Sign up for the next chance to get on site at 136 Earlham Grove and help other FGCG Members to clear the last of the rubbish, mend internal fences and move donated materials in, led by Lisa and Rob of the Steering Group.

We're running an afternoon and a morning session and can fit 30 people in per session. You'll need to wear the stoutest shoes you have, gloves if you have them (we'll provide some if you haven't) and bring water. Not suitable for under 16's.

We're also accepting donations of wood, paving stones, fencing and bricks so if you have any of these items please email us and we can arrange to pick up or advise on delivery on 9 May. These items will be used to make raised beds, provide hard surfaces for our container hub and create other hard landscaping.

We need to know numbers for the site day and if you will be donating goods. In both cases please email info@forestgate-community-garden.org.uk.

NB If you're not a Member of the FGCG, you can still attend, just sign up to become a Member via our website (link here) or via the email above. Only £2 lifetime Membership to stay in the loop about what's going on!

LATEST NEWS // FGCG Organic Gardening Course now underway, email to check if still availability

A second term of the Forest Gate Community Garden Organic Gardening Course is now underway at the Forest Gate Learning Zone. This term it is help at 7pm on Wednesdays so that more people can attend after work.

The first term was a great success, and by the look of the numbers attending this year already, organic methods of gardening seem to be something lots of people in the area want to learn about.

If you didn't manage to sign up for this batch of sessions but would still like to attend you can check availability at info@forestgate-community-garden.org.uk.

Details about the course can also be found here: http://136earlhamgrove.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/latest-news-join-round-two-of-forest.html

LATEST NEWS // Garden Design Course with FGCG tutor Stephen Mason

Want to know more about Garden Design - how to turn your patch into a stunning vista?

Stephen Mason, who runs the very successful FGCG Organic Gardening Course at the Forest Gate Learning Zone, is running a weekly 2-hour session at his house in Wanstead on Fridays for 10 weeks from 24 April.

Covering basic principles of Garden Design, it will be tailored to the garden design needs of course members. Cost £70 or £7 per session.

Sessions have already begun but you can drop in and drop out or start from week 2. FGCG Members and non-Members welcome.

Contact Stephen for more details on stephen.mason7@googlemail.com

LATEST NEWS // Join round two of the Forest Gate Community Garden Organic Gardening Course – starts 22 April 2015

Our first Organic Gardening Course has gone so well, we've gone and organised a second one, running for 10 weeks from 22 April 2015 – this time on Wednesday evenings between 7-9pm. Read on for more details on the course and how to enrol

FGCG Organic Gardening Course tutor Stephen Mason on site (centre) in the Forest Gate Community
Garden following our Members event in September 2014

Only one more week left of the very first Forest Gate Community Garden Organic Gardening Course with tutor Stephen Mason, just in time to get out into the garden for a bit of spring sowing, planting and last minute propagating!

Those of us lucky enough to be on the first course have learnt so much – more than we thought possible in just 2 hours each week – including how to have healthy soil, all about shrubs, flowers, trees, and seeds and great tips on water conservation, organic pest control and keeping your tools shipshape. Can't wait to put all our newfound knowledge into action in our own personal gardens and the forthcoming community garden at 136 Earlham Grove.

Don't worry if you missed the course this time round, as we're running a second 10-week class at the Learning Zone from 22 April – this time it's on a Wednesday evening between 7pm and 10pm. You can enrol from 15 April and it costs just £60 for 10 weeks (concession rates apply).

ABOUT THE COURSE // HOW TO ENROL

Run in partnership with Newham Adult Learning Service and tutored by renowned local organic gardener Stephen Mason of Greenspace Management – who has a distinguished community garden record – it runs for 10 weeks from Wednesday 22 April 2015. Sessions take place between 7-9pm each week and are held at the Forest Gate Learning Zone (1 Woodford Road, London, E7 0DH; 5 minutes walk from Forest Gate Station; opposite Wanstead Park Station).

The full cost of the course is £60 for those in employment but there are concessions for the retired and those on benefits, with evidence (see page 2 of the Newham Adult Learning Lifelong Learning 2014-2015 brochure). In order to qualify you need to enrol at Forest Gate Learning Zone on 15 April (10am-7pm), 16 April (10am-7pm) and 17 April at (10am-4pm).

Read on for a detailed account of our syllabus. It is designed to be flexible to meet participants needs and interests and to be of value to experienced as well as new gardeners. Hope to see you there!

Course Students Learn in the Garden

Trees and shrubs were the topic for Week 8 of the garden course. Wearing our stoutest shoes, 13 of us used the garden site as an outdoor classroom. As usual Stephen, the tutor, was a mine of information about everything we saw. He pointed out key plants, including a small silver birch which we need to conserve, several shrubs which must have survived from the time when it was a cultivated garden, and the lovely elder which we will produce flowers and berries for wine and jam. As we worked, a beautiful healthy fox strolled confidently past us in the sunshine. A great experience.
The next course starts on Wednesday April 22nd at 7pm at the Learning Zone. Enrol in the previous week on April 15th, 16th or 17th.
Now, where's that homework on trees and shrubs.....?

Thanks for the Hearts, Number 8

Thanks to everyone who displayed their hearts in the window of Number 8.
Your generous donations will help us build a beautiful garden in the heart of Forest Gate.

FEATURE // WEEK 1-5 OF THE ORGANIC GARDENING COURSE // A RAMBLING ACCOUNT

It's half term and, as such, the Forest Gate Community Garden Organic Gardening Course is on holiday for a week. Here's a little taster of the course so far and how we might apply our new knowledge to our own garden and the Forest Gate Community Gardenat 136 Earlham Grove. Steering Group Member and 'student' Sonya Patel Ellis reports

Companion planting in the vegetable garden can help keep pets away and makes your plot look beautiful

It's nearly March and Week 6 of the Forest Gate Community Garden Organic Gardening Course is on the horizon. Half term provides a week off in which to contemplate what we have learnt and maybe begin to implement some of the things that we have been taught as the advent of Spring begins to throw up shoots. Here's a little recap of weeks 1-5 – can't believe how much we've learnt already. The power of osmosis...

WE ONLY NEED TWO MORE MEMBERS

Saturday's Winter Event at BB's was a roaring success. After our AGM over 50 people enjoyed great food, plenty to drink and loved the Scumbags. We made a much needed £400 for the garden and we signed up 17 new members, so only need 2 more to reach 200 - fantastic! Thanks to everyone who made it a great evening.

GARDEN COURSE // As promised – the course feedback web link

Fellow Members of the FGCG Organic Gardening Course with Stephen Mason. As promised here is a link to the course feedback website so that we can all say how brilliant the course is.

I'll also be posting some feedback on the course this site soon, so please do drop me an email if you are able to give me a couple of words on that too: 136earlhamgrove@gmail.com.

Herewith the link: https://surveys.ipsosinteractive.com/mrWeb/mrlWeb.dll?!.Project=S2000172

However it doesn't seem to work at the moment. I'll keep trying and then relink it so you can click on it direct.

Thank you, Sonya x