13-03-13 : Community Garden Tea Party

Green fingered staff and students turned out on Wednesday for our community garden tea party to find out how they could get growing here on the Kingston Hill campus! Several plants had survived the winter well but there's room for more so we got our thinking caps on!

Let's see what has survived from last year's planting...chives, strawberries, oregano  - a great start!

This growing space on campus is tucked away in a quiet corner next to the mid-level BUilding but it's certainly not dead! Fruit, veg, herbs and flowers have a home here in four of the five beds available. The fifth can be found opposite the Nightingale Centre.

A sunny spell at our tea party

With the sun shining our tea party got underway under a blue sky. Volunteers were keen to get stuck in with a few seasonal jobs to get the garden ready for Spring. We cut away overgrown turf and mulched the bases of the fruit bushes and then weeded the beds. Leftover mulch was spread on the beds to prevent the weeds reappearing.

A barrowful of mulch will keep the weeds at bay

Many hands make light work with the mulching

Spruced up and ready for more planting, these beds are here for YOU to use!

Our sunny start soon made way for snow - so much for Spring!! A few fluffy flurries encouraged us to turn our attention to the hot tea and tasty cake. The break gave us a good opportunity to brainstorm ideas for the future, and before long we were sat out on the lawn in sunshine again.

New to gardening, Marlon and Giovanna teamed up and agreed to give growing a go, while Phil is keen to try tomatoes for a second year. Agnieszka has suggested blueberries will make a nice addition, but we are still in need of more ideas and helping hands!

Giovanna gets stuck into some much needed weeding.

The weeding revealed there is definitely room for more flowers, among other things, and they will be gratefully received by the bees who live in our hive on the terrace above the garden.

Giovanna thoroughly enjoyed her first taste of community gardening at Kingston Hill.

Volunteers were keen to open up the garden to as many people as possible and we let our imaginations run wild! So look out for forthcoming lunchtime picnics, work parties to build extra functional items such as a new compost and creative/artistic features too, and, who knows, maybe some live music???! 

Agnieszka shows Phil the chives sprouting up already this year.
The beauty of community gardening is that knowledge and experience like this can be shared.

So don't feel you have to be a gardener to come here, pop along and just find out what people are doing, appreciate the space and relax. Of course if you decide to grow something you have the added bonus of harvesting it later in the year - something which is extremely satisfying (and yummy)!!