Here’s the latest news from the Golden Hill Community Garden from Lucy Mitchell, Community Project Worker…

Hi everyone!

April is one of our busiest times in the garden. The volunteers have planted a heroic amount of seeds and they are all growing happily away in the tunnels and popping up in the soil outside.  We’re planning our usual big plant sale in May so for the next month the polytunnels will be PACKED with little plants being looked after with love before we send them off into the world.

Also in the past couple of months there has been epic clearance work done by the wonderful Wednesday volunteers.  About five years ago we were defeated by brambles and we surrendered a large corner of the edible forest to them but this year it has been reclaimed, cleared and we’ve planted a little willow wood ready for winter wreaths in the future.

The clearing work also uncovered our little stream which we kind of knew was there but have mostly forgotten about but now the garden feels transformed in a subtle but exciting way.

It’s my favourite time of year as every starts turning green and we’ve got an abundance of green leaves to munch and get that green inside of us.  We’ve got spinach, chard, kale, mustards, and more coming out of our ears – it’s great!

Also it was great to see the first little purple nose of asparagus poke its way into the world. We first planted asparagus in 2013 but were over-confident and didn’t prepare the bed properly and then ignored it for the first year. It grew but never big enough for a proper harvest and despite giving it piles of manure and apologies in years to come it never bounced back and so last year we started again.

This time  we prepped the bed carefully, mulched it, watered it, kept a close eye on its progress and it looks like it’s paid off AND we now only have to wait until NEXT spring before we can try it. It’ll be worth the wait.

After the Easter holidays we’ll have our toddlers and after-schoolers back for more garden fun, singing, hooning round, planting, making and all that.  We’ve got some spots in our 11.30am Tuesday toddler group so get in touch if you’d like to come along for a free taster.

And coming up next month….. OUR BIG SPRING FAIR!  Saturday 11th May 1pm-4pm.  They’ll be loads of plants for sale, choirs singing, musician playing, pond dipping, pizza eating, face painting, junk drumming, making and crafting and caking and MORE.  AND still at 2012 prices!

It’s YOU the lovely supporters of the garden that make these events so lovely and help us raise money for the garden. So if you can help on the day or bake a cake or spread the word on facebook or just come along and bring everyone you know!

ALSO we need T-shirts!  Any size or quality for a craft we doing on the day – so if you have any spare please come and drop them off in the garden any Wednesday between 10am-4pm.

And finally a massive thank you to all the good folks who pop blue tokens in the boxes at north Bristol Tesco’s. In Jan/Feb we had the most blue token so it means our activities for families with special educational needs or a disability will be fully funded for the year and we can get lots of lovely resources!  THANK YOU!!

See you in the garden!

Lucy