New Growth and New Friends: A Year of Transformation at Our Community Garden

Over the past year we have been very pleased to welcome a number of young men from Tinkers Hatch. Andy Millbank has been bringing them to the community garden once or twice a week. And the difference they have made is wonderful to observe. They have worked incredibly hard on the vegetable beds digging them over and then filling them with well rotted rich manure that a stables kindly donated. Then they turned their hands to the paths around these beds all during the cold and wet months of this past winter. We received a gift of a large pile of wood chip which they have spread over the paths they cleared. Everyone walking past has admired their work. As a result other visitors and community garden members have been able to focus on sowing loads of vegetable seeds and tending to the flower beds.

Over these last few months Rob has been able to make a huge dent in the shared composting area for the entire group of allotment gardens. He has a gift with wood and turns his hand to the creation of both utilitarian and more beautiful items. We now have a huge rotating sieve to extricate usable compost from material that needs to degrade further in the newly formed and carefully designated heaps. It is amazing to see how a pile of pallets can be turned into all sorts of incredibly useful items, including wheel chair ramps and working areas for potting on seedlings.

We all look forward to visiting the Community Garden where we are surrounded by so many healthy plants as we watch them grow. There’s a feeling of gentle peace and also exhilaration as more and more green and loads of other colours keep appearing miraculously as the season gets warmer.

Everyone was excited to be entering different categories for the Spring Show this past month, in the village hall of the combined villages of East Hoathly and Halland. We have hung the post cards which describe the hard work of all our visitors and volunteers, up in our shelter for all to see. These were postcards describing our 1st, 2nd & 3rd prizes for all the daffodils and handiwork we submitted to show the village what we are doing here.