The People’s Community Garden
Newsletter March 2009
Maidenhall Allotments, Halifax Road
Ipswich IP2 8RE
Postal address: ICVS, 1 Cornhill, Ipswich IP1 1DD
01473 261112
susannah.robirosa@ipswich-cvs.org.uk
Tel: 01473 261112
Mobile: 07530 407302
Check out our new website: www.townandbridge.org.uk/garden
Dates for your Diary:
This weekend! Herb Circle Workshop
Sat 7/Sun 8 March
10.30am-3pm; £3 per day or £5 both days. Children FREE!
Contact Dan Wheals on 07717793347
Friday March 13 March, 10.30am
Plotholders’ Question Time with Ric Staines.
Ric is running Plotholders’ Question Time on the second Friday of each month, featuring a different gardening topic. Feel free to request a subject.
QUESTION TIME: Ric demonstrates how to plant a fruit tree at the Garden’s official Opening in October. He will be leading informal Question Time sessions at the community garden from February.
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It will be a chance to get together at the Community Garden, watch Ric demonstrate techniques, and pick his brains on all things green-fingered. The sessions are free, but you may find time to help us out in the Community Garden once in a while, now the busy spring growing time approaches.
Next meeting of People’s Community Garden Committee Meeting:
Monday 1 June at 3.30pm
Please come along and join us if you are interested in sitting on our new committee. Taking over from the existing Steering Group, this committee will take the community garden into the future. You can contribute ideas without having to commit too much time.We also need people to help with fundraising and other important tasks. See you in the green cabin on site!
We now have a full programme of workshops for the year, on the first weekend of the month. Join Dan on Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 March for his Herb Circle workshop. Day 1: Use sand bags and hazel hurdles to make the structure. Day 2: Plant up the herbs and learn about their life-enhancing benefits. For details of other workshops, check out our new website: www.townandbridge.org.uk/garden.
Composting/ wormery / wildlife habitats weekend workshops: 4 & 5 April
Hanging Baskets Workshop with Ric, Saturday 25 April, 10.30am.
Garden HOE (Horticultural Outdoor Exercise): Starting Wednesday 6 May, 2.00-3.30pm
Six FREE weekly sessions of gentle exercise in the garden with a specialist health trainer.
Basic Skills Courses: Sowing the Seeds of Literacy/ Sowing the Seeds of Numeracy
Improve your reading and writing/build up your confidence with figures. These friendly sessions in literacy and numeracy will run in the garden led by aspecialist green-fingered basic skills tutor. Start date: Tuesday 12 May 10.00am-12.00pm Numeracy; 12.30-2.30pm Literacy.
We are in the process of raising funds to plant up our Sensory Garden, kindly designed by Otley College student James Collins. If you can help, please get in touch. James will be leading a workshop on Sensory Garden design the first weekend of May. Please book with Susannah.
WE NEED HELP!
The basic infrastructure of the Community Garden is in place: we have our cabin base, Welcome Space, beds and paths suitable for disabled use, polytunnel and compost toilet. We have also planted up our orchard with Suffolk varieties, and have designated areas for the Herb Circle and Wildlife Area. The willow tunnel will be built on 21 February. Now we need to get our growing plots in full swing in the busy spring season. If you could spare some time, please get in touch. The garden is open every week day except Thursday, 10am until 3.30pm. Dan on 07717 793347 (Mon and Wed) and Ric on 07527 399726 (Tue and Fri) would love to hear from you.
Your views are important to us: If you have any ideas for the community garden, please get in touch. Thanks to everyone who has given feedback on our wind turbine so far. The consultation period ends at the end of March. Thanks to everyone who has helped the project over the past weeks. Special thanks to James Collins, for garden design, Steve Pritchard, for website, Steve Britt, for donation of equipment, David Wyllie of Mosscliff Environmental for wind turbine assistance, and to all our regular volunteers who have turned up, often at short notice and in bad weather, to help us out.
