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.

Making the Garden Grow - The Inside Story: 16

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.

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!

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