Tag: community gardening

One year on: Sustainability and Community winners Greening Brownfield

To celebrate the second year of our Cultivation Street campaign, we’re taking a look at last year’s winners and what they’ve done with their prize vouchers.

Greening Brownfield Community Garden was the deserving champion of the 2013 Sustainability and Community award. They impressed the judges with their stunning garden built on the mantra: reduce, reuse and recycle.

Residents of Brownfield Estate in Poplar, East London, wanted to find project the whole community could participate in. They also wished to improve the neglected areas of the estate, so they decided to commandeer two disused tennis courts on the estate.

They got a grant to get running water on the site and a shed for storage, and set up two beehives. A further grant enabled them to build a children’s play area and put in wheelchair access.

Residents then began building growing boxes out of old pallets and scaffolding boards. Some are communal and others are leased by individuals. Building their own gave them the freedom to lift some up on legs to make sure less mobile members could still get growing.

Everything was sustainable, from containers like old guitars to the compost they used! Resident Fiona Kearns said, “We re-use our garden waste and, with the help of a rotating composter, we recycle as much of our kitchen waste as we can gather.”

One of their biggest projects was a building a henhouse. Local builders donated the materials and they assembled it on site according to a design downloaded from the Internet.

The only money they spent was £3.50 on hinges, and it now houses eight ex-battery hens which provide the residents with plenty of fresh eggs.

They created a bug hotel from second-hand bits and pieces which for the last two years has also been home to blackbirds raising their chicks.

Everyone in the community was delighted to win the prize, and they have decided to put the vouchers towards a large purchase – a greenhouse! They would also like some battery-operated tools so they can build even more on site, and are currently fundraising to make it happen.

Since last year, they have held many community events, including a Bonfire Night party and a barbeque with the local housing association. They also won Best Newcomer in the Tower Hamlets in Bloom competition, and came third overall.

But most importantly, they have continued to make their garden sustainable. “We bought a second-hand shed from eBay to store the equipment for the chickens, and installed a water butt to reduce our consumption,” said Fiona. “We have also joined the local shared electric car scheme to help move materials with eco-friendly transport.”

The community has also been helping out the local wildlife. They still have blackbirds nesting on the site and there are hundreds of tadpoles in their pond, which is built in a discarded bath.

They also upgraded their beehives to ones with better insulation, and are taking part in the Tower Hamlets’ Bee Watch to monitor and record the different sorts of bee that visit.

Community gardens benefit everyone, as Fiona says. “The garden provides a space for residents of all ages to learn new skills and have somewhere simply to be in a green and growing oasis in a very concrete environment.”
June 12, 2014
One year on project: Cultivation School winners Minety pre-school

To celebrate the second year of our Cultivation Street campaign, we’re taking a look at last year’s winners and what they’ve done with their prize vouchers.

Last year’s deserving Cultivation School winner was Minety pre-school in Malmesbury, Wiltshire. Their stunning efforts involving pupils, parents and staff wowed our judges, and they’ve done even more this year!

The school used the prize money to buy a new greenhouse, which has helped them plant seeds for their garden even earlier this year.

Pupils, aged from 18 months to four-and-a-half years old, have already displayed their plants at the RHS Malvern Show earlier this month. The students designed a garden representing the Factory Act of 1876, which stopped children going down mines and instead sent them to school.

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Malvern Show stand

The school, which has been gardening for about seven years, has now bought the old red BT phone box next the school and is using it to sell their plants to raise even more funds.

Teacher Stuart Jackson said: “Everyone has been so inspired by winning Cultivation Street. We love our new greenhouse and after emptying it for the Malvern Spring Show Garden, it’s now full of plants again. We just can’t stop growing. Now we have the phone box, we can sell all our extra plants to the community, so everybody wins!”

The school garden has two big raised beds for veg and four smaller ones for flowers and fruit trees. It started with a large bit of paper on the table and some gardening magazines. The children planned what plants they wanted to sow and which colours they liked.

Every bit of the garden has been dug, hoed raked and sown by the children, and Stuart says if they put flowers next to vegetables then so be it – it is their garden.

The children have also used vegetables to make dyes and then made a scarecrow with the dyed clothes. Before they starting growing their own, some of the children would not eat vegetables, but now pupils can go into the garden and pick any vegetable they like at snack time.

Stuart added: “Getting the children outside and into the garden really helps build on their social skills and emotional development and we hope it will give them a love of gardening and the outdoors for life.

We’re really pleased to see so many children benefitting from the Cultivation Street campaign! Find out how to get involved here.

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May 28, 2014
Cultivation Street – St Peter’s school garden pond by the students

We’ve had some fantastic entries for the schools category of our Cultivation Street campaign this year. One of them is St Peter’s Junior School in Derby, where pupils have created an incredible school garden, complete with a wildlife pond!

Pupils have also been working towards the RSPB’s Wildlife Action Awards scheme with outdoor education practitioner Katy Doncaster. Two Year 5 pupils, Jasmine and Chessie, aged 10, have chosen to put in extra work and go for gold!

They have to complete a range of tasks, including getting ‘in the news’. Their pond will be featured in the Sunday People newspaper this weekend, but I wanted to give them the opportunity to talk about the incredible work they’re doing, and what they have learned from it. Plus, they’ve come up with a great list of tips for other schools and pupils who are thinking of building a pond! Over to them:

We love the pond because you can just look at it for ages. You can watch things grow – we’d never seen tadpoles grow and change from frog spawn. They have eyes – we didn’t know that. The pond skaters are amazing, they’re just awesome – they can walk on water!

We’ve always looked at creatures that live on the land, but it’s fascinating seeing all the animals that live in the water. We never had any water at school, but now we love to sit and watch the amazing wildlife in the pond.

When you think of pond dangers, you think of drowning, but it’s really not that dangerous. You just need to be careful, and have supervision. We’ve got signs saying the pond is there to let people know. Our pond happens to be in a locked away area that was never been used for anything. We didn’t really have room anywhere else because our garden isn’t that big, so it’s been a good way to use the space.

Our school garden used to be so boring when we were in Year 3, but now we’ve planted lots of vegetables like carrots, beans, pumpkins and wildflowers. We have Sir Oakey too, who is a Royal Oak that was given to school.

This year, we’re working on a place called the Peace Garden, which is where you can go to sit and relax, calm down and think about life. It has a small pebble pond in the middle.

Our Pond Top Tips

1. Make sure it’s somewhere enclosed.

2. Make sure everyone gets to help make it.

3. Ask for donations! Our pond cost next to nothing, because people gave us loads of things – the liner, rockery stones, water plants, green oak edging and frog spawn.

4. Have a good edging for people to kneel or sit on.

5. Put plants in to keep the pond healthy.

6. Make sure you plan out when you’re going to start making your pond, as it takes quite a long time. The best times are spring or autumn.

7. Make time to go outside and see the changes, week by week.

8. It’s really interesting to keep a track of making your pond, and how it develops afterwards – take photos to see all the changes.

One of our teachers said that she is very proud that we do this at school, because she sees the children enjoying it so much, and they get so excited to work in the garden or study the pond. She said that she could spend hours looking in the pond!

Thanks to Chessie and Jasmine for their article, and to Katy and everyone at the school. Good luck!
May 23, 2014