Update on the community garden

A bit of background

I rented Room 3 at Goldsmiths Community Centre in mid-February as the base for a project Hubbub Community Media Resource, funded by Whitefoot and Downham Local Assemblies. The project helps local groups and organisations with publicity, marketing and fundraising using social media and aims to paint a picture of the local area through community reporting by adult education students and local people. Room 3 has exclusive use of what is known as the 'pensioners' garden (although I've not seen a pensioner in it!).
The garden had been neglected since the group who maintained it stopped. I'd had a go at it a couple of years' earlier, at that time a new Wellbeing Service at the centre had been set up and I had the idea to create a 'physic' or apothecary garden to complement it, growing herbs, aromatic and other plants used in traditional medicine, for learning and enjoyment. I applied for funding, didn't get it, and moved on to other things. When I came back and looked out on it, the idea resurfaced!

Bring a Plant Day

First of all thank you very much to all who came to the Bring a Plant Day on Monday 16 April , for their labour and plants, and for the fantastic write up of the day on this blog. There's not much more I can add, except it was quite spontaneously planned but we chose the right day for it! The plants have all been well watered now, despite their drought tolerance and a hosepipe ban. From an occasional hacking away in my lunch hour, the concerted effort by everyone last Monday has really made a difference and I met some lovely new people who are as interested in gardening as I am.

A word on those brambles. The green palisade fence which was put up last year augmented a chain link fence which had been there since the 1970s. The brambles were grown to stop intruders, and were pretty successful although the centre is not immune to stuff being hurled over or finding a way through.

When it opened in 1939 the community centre had no fence at all and opened out on to a recreation space of 13 acres, where the Excalibur prefabs now stand (not for much longer).

The community centre has been inextricably linked with gardening and food production over the past 70+ years. One of the first groups to be set up was the Goldsmiths Community Centre Gardening Society (now Goldsmiths Gardeners), formed in 1939 and who manage the Crutchley/Hazelbank Road allotments to this day. They held their first annual flower and vegetable show at the centre on August Bank Holiday 1939 and from 1940-1945 managed the open space as 144 allotments - 'Dig for Victory'! Thanks to local residents I have copies of certificates awarded by the Society for 'Truss of Tomatoes' and 'Prettiest Front Garden'!

For more than 30 years the Gardeners Society acted as a garden centre, providing seeds, bulbs, plants and compost to the local community. They still meet in the growing season on Sunday mornings at the centre. If you would like to know more about the history of the community centre click here

A big thanks again to everyone and to all the contacts I've made subsequently!