We’re calling on Wandsworth Council to make it easier for local communities to turn unused public land into productive, biodiverse and welcoming spaces.
identify council-owned land that could be used for community growing;
make suitable land available to community organisations through simple, free licences;
consider allowing communities to grow on sites awaiting development, on a temporary basis; and
support the wider campaign for a national Right to Grow.
The basic idea is pretty simple: if a patch of public land is sitting unused, why not let local people make something brilliant out of it for their local neighbourhood.
But first, we need to know where those possibilities are. That’s where Plot to Possibility comes in. We’re creating a map to help us spot the spaces around Wandsworth that could become something more.
Spotted an unused space?
Have you noticed an unused or underused space in Wandsworth that could be transformed into a community garden, food-growing area or space for nature?
Let us know! We’re creating an open-source map of potential sites to help us scout out opportunities for nature recovery and community food growing across the borough.
Send us the location and a few details about the site via the following form. Every space could be an opportunity to grow something.
Right to Grow meets Sustainable September
September is Wandsworth Sustainable September, a month celebrating the brilliant sustainability work happening across the borough, from community gardening and growing to repair cafés, nature activities and harvest events.
We have been taking our Plot to Possibility activities out to events across Wandsworth, to get people re-imagining unused spaces. On Saturday 12th we were at St Mary’s Church, along side Beautify Balham. On Sunday 13th we had a table at Paradise Cooperative’s Harvest festival.
Coming up we will be at the Southfields Harvest Festival and Fishponds Harvest Festival, both on the 26th of September, followed by the Big Green Day of Action at the Woodfield Pavillion on the 3rd of October. Come say hi, take part in Plot to Possibility, and start mapping potential growing spaces in your neighbourhood! For details see below…
Southfields Harvest Festival Saturday 26 September | 12–2pm (see HERE)
Fishponds Garden Harvest Saturday 26 September | 3–5pm (see HERE)
Woodfield Pavilion Day Of Climate Action Saturday 3 October | 11am-2pm (see HERE)
We’re also looking for more local events to join! If you’re organising a community, gardening, food or environmental event and would like us to come along, get in touch at dpateln@gmail.com.
What a day! On 9 May 2026, the United Reformed Church in Rookstone Road buzzed with energy, creativity, and a shared passion for making Tooting a better place. TootingCAN, organized by Transition Town Tooting (TTT) and funded by the Wandsworth Grant Fund, brought together 108 participants from all walks of life to celebrate the skills, resilience, and kindness that make our community thrive.
From the moment you walked in, you could feel that this was more than just an event. It was a testament to what happens when we come together to learn, share, and care for one another. Whether you were trying your hand at British Sign Language (BSL), crafting a comic book, or whipping up date balls in the kitchen, there was something for everyone, and everyone had something to give.
Stitching the Totes
A Celebration of Skills and Community
TTT’s mission is to tackle the climate and ecological emergency through volunteer-led, community-driven action right here in Tooting. TootingCAN is our moment to convene the people with skills and experiences from our locality to do exactly that through sharing, showcasing that our work is nothing without the vibrant and diverse community right here in Tooting. Participants left with new experiences, fresh ideas, and a sense of belonging that’s vital to build a flourishing sustainable future.:
108 participants engaged across 15 activities.
15+ workshops delivered, from worm composting to AI sustainability and Indian dance.
Around 75% of attendees were Wandsworth residents, proving that the best solutions start right where we live.
But the real magic was in the story we all started to weave:
9 out of 10 participants praised the event’s warmth and inclusivity, with many highlighting the friendliness and the diverse, healthy food as standout features.
Activities like the BSL workshop and Creation Station, led by children and supervised by Core Group member Abby, (where attendees crafted badges, mugs, and comic book stories) were particularly beloved, with participants calling them “inspiring” and “connected to family heritage.”
Special mention for Kelly’s cooking class for children; firstly as it enabled children to experience the joy of cooking nutritious meals from scratch, secondly as it introduced them to cooking sustainably through plant based recipes. It is hoped that this will plant the seeds for these children to enjoy cooking and cook meals that are good for the planet – potential huge long term gains if they can be sustained (through more Tooting CANs!)
The event closed with a community meal, performances of the fresh BSL skills and slick Indian dance moves before a collective sing song with the Lido Choir which brought the room to life, proving that joy is a skill we all share.
Lap around a Laptop, take a look inside…
Feedback That Warms the Heart and nourishes our work
This year, we had an engaging and creative way to gather feedback on the walls of the entrance corridors. One attendee, a 70-year-old singer, said:
“I loved the community atmosphere, anyone can sing! I’d love to see more singing in future events.”
Another, a 50-year-old stitching enthusiast, shared:
“I connected sewing to my family heritage and loved the Lido Choir. The whole event felt so welcoming.”
Contributors (our 30+ volunteers) echoed this sentiment. They loved seeing the diversity of skills on display and the buzz of activity, and the collective effort of hosting TootingCAN.
Indian dance, clack! clack!
What’s Next?
Transition Town Toting have run TootingCAN for the last 3 years and the enthusiasm for it grows each time. This year, we received loads of ideas for workshops at future TootingCANs, such as:
More singing and creative workshops (think choral singing, book clubs and dance)
Deeper dives into IT topics like AI and sustainability.
Arts and Crafts from crochet to lino printing, collage to painting & sketching
Food and cooking workshops like fermentation, kimchi and baking
Finally, the practical stuff: gardening, bike maintenance and woodwork.
Most importantly, TootingCAN proved that community resilience isn’t just a buzzword, it’s something we build, day by day, skill by skill, in community. Let’s see how next year’s tootingCAN develops!
Serving lunch
A Huge Thank You
To every participant, volunteer, and contributor, thank you for making TootingCAN a day to remember. Your energy, creativity, and kindness are what make Tooting special. Huge thanks to Amy and the United Reformed Church, our home from home. And to the Wandsworth Grant Fund, thank you for believing in this vision and helping us bring it to life.
The future is bright, and it starts right here in Tooting. Let’s keep sharing, learning, and growing together—because when we do, there’s no limit to what we can achieve.
Want to get involved? Perhaps you have something to offer for next year’s TootingCAN? Transition Town Tooting is always looking for volunteers and new ideas. Get in touch at [TransitionTownTooting@gmail.com] to join the movement!
Close with a sing song
Tooting can!
By Rich Couldrey
Step in to the creation station, stick, squeeze, badge Take a lap around a laptop, who knew AI was… Stitching ties, totes to carry your prize, whirrr, prick, chat, chat Chaat chaat, making chaat, spiced cascade, A taste of tooting in date … balls and pizzas made, squeeze, need and dough The meal begins to assemble ...
But wait, we dive underground, dark, as worms wriggle and squirm outside, Past quests for reflection, to planters repaired and hands in the soil, plants go in... grow, grow!
In community, we relate, a rainbow human family, What did you say? Hands sway and flow, in letters made as we move, my name, your name, hello hello.
Gestures turn to dance, sticks clack clack! As Ragini moves, with such grace and poise, we follow, Kathak, Kathak.
And back, to find a way into a digital world, clickety clack of fingers on keyboards learning to excel, nearly time to relax...
Wooosh! A gleeful child runs and newspaper kites fly out back, time to rise up... up... up... to see a drawn map of us all, BAT BAT.
Enough of all that, Take a breath, in and sing, feel the healing, "hold on, my dear, here comes the dawn" rings, And stop, pause, time to eat and reflect, A leek and potatoes soup to fill the...head… heart and hands, and celebrate... Tooting's rainbow soul, ‘til next time we gather and change the world once more.
Sewing and Sanctuary is a women’s sewing group which was founded in May 2022.
It is a Transition Town Tooting project run in partnership with Oxfam Tooting.
We are a place of sanctuary where women of refugee and asylum seeker backgrounds and women from the local community meet, stitch and chat. We enjoy learning together, sharing skills and helping one another. With an emphasis on reuse, we make beautiful creations whilst reducing textile waste.
Our priority is promoting good mental health. We use lots of different textile related techniques including hand stitching, machine stitching, crochet and knitting. Have a look at this lovely video of our work.
After over ten years of flourishing as a vibrant oasis in the heart of Tooting, the Tooting Community Garden will go into a period of transformation. For local residents the garden has long offered a place where wilderness and community spirit met. Now, as a new development takes shape, the garden faces its next chapter.
Development and Change
The largest portion of the cherished green space will soon make way for a new, though long-planned, project: eight assisted living flats.
While the reduction in size marks a significant change for the garden – the loss of wild space and refuge for all the animals loving rotting wood and leafy corners (look at our Instagram for the biodiversity we have!)
Nevertheless, we see it as a new beginning. Planning approval was granted on the condition that the community garden would remain, ensuring its legacy continues in a reimagined guise. We are grateful for the ongoing commitment from Naseem Aboobaker to our gardening cause.
Looking Forward
Though the footprint of the garden may shrink, its ambitions for it remain unchanged. We are determined to maintain a dedicated space for growing, learning, and fostering sustainable practices and we are working with the architect to maintain as much of what has become ‘our’ space as possible.
Over the coming six months, our focus will shift to a horticultural rescue mission: identifying which of our perennials to keep and for which we might be seeking new homes—or perhaps even foster plots—for our surplus plants. With a touch of hope, we imagine a handful of these plants as the first seeds of what will become the Fishponds community garden.
This oasis began its journey many years ago in summer 2012, emerging from the brambles behind 5, North Drive. Starting out with preparing beds to grow vegetables of the years we added trees and shrubs and fruit bushes. So many of those donated to find a new home as people had to leave their gardens or had to much success with their planting.
When developers took away the small woodland that bordered our sanctuary, we seized the opportunity—introducing a patch of flax and carving out a potato plot, breathing new life into every inch of the reclaimed ground.
Not to forget, the herb bed created and tended to by our friend Rose until the very last weeks of her life. The new community garden will hold a space that will be Rose’s bed.
The much anticipated, Community Stitching Upcycled Fashion Show took place on Saturday 20th September at Tooting United Reformed Church.
The fashion show started at 12.30 pm and about twenty upcycled outfits were showcased by our amazing models, most of whom were regular members of the Sewing and Sanctuary group, complemented by friends and family.
Our fantastic compère, Jane Clark, who is also a facilitator of the group, talked the audience through the garments being worn, to inspire others to try this at home! Several of our makers had incorporated Shibori stitch resist-dyed indigo pieces and sashiko samples made at Sewing and Sanctuary under the guidance of Jill Rutter, who also appeared as one of our models, showing more of her own work. Many of the garments in the show had been rescued from Oxfam’s recycling bags, or discovered at the Work and Play Scrapstore, beautifully illustrating how we can breathe new life into previously unwanted clothes. Our showstopper skirt incorporated vintage tablecloths and vintage crochet doilies and it was embroidered with meaningful words selected by group members to express how coming to the group makes them feel, some of these were ‘connect’ ‘inspire’ ‘welcome’.
Following the show, attendees could chat and go to each of the 6 activity tables to try out some of these upcycling skills. On offer was making felt or fabric flower brooches with Gloria from Sewing and Sanctuary and Gillian from Crafty Pint. Heather, representing the Tooting Market crochet group, led pom-pom making plus an introduction to crochet and knitting. Doreen and Shirley from Thread and Connect taught weaving skills with cardboard looms, Balham Sewing Bee members showed how to add pockets to garments and Nabila offered mending skills. Participants were truly inspired by the attractive displays of various natural dyeing techniques by Jill Rutter, Jane Clark and Helen Kertesz. The stall selling haberdashery from the Work and Play Scrapstore was very popular too!
There was a wonderful buzz of activity in the room and all this time the fantastic TTT catering team, led by Abby, were busily making organic vegetable and lentil, vegan soup (ingredients kindly donated by Abel and Cole). The room was skilfully transformed, creating one long, dressed dining table, thanks to the skilful guidance of Rich, and everyone sat down to a delicious lunch of soup served with fresh bread and tasty samosas (kindly supplied by Pooja).
This event celebrated Wandsworth Borough Council’s Sustainable September and Oxfam’s Secondhand September.
Having been inspired by Fishponds Bioblitz we decided to do our own and to start with looking out for our garden animals.
A BioBlitz is defined as a short, intensive period of time during which a group of people find and identify as many species of plants, animals, fungi and other organisms as possible within a specific georgraphic are.
We decided to focus on animals this time and spend a gardening session to expore our own area. Maybe a little less scientific but nevertheless fun. We also wanted to see how much diversity we have in our garden and to continue doing these exercises year on year to monitor the development of animal diversity.
Equipped with containers, brushes and sticks we ventured around the garden, we looked closely at our flowers to look for pollinators, we turned over stones for invertebraes and lifted the rugs from our compost bins to capture some of our many arachnids.
The writer of this post was most surprised by the diversity of snails and slugs in the garden. Not their best friends when it comes to cultivating kale they thought there is ‘THE slug’ and ‘THE snail’. A leopard slug is surprisingly pretty.
We found Parakeets eating the greengages (see the video on our Instagram of that), different sizes of crab spiders a jumping spider a red tailed and a white backed bumblebee.
We learned the difference between a millepedes and centipedes. Did you know that centipedes are carnivorous and actually have fangs to immobilise their prey.
We collected a variety of types of woodlice of all sizes.
Some of our hollyhocks have already started to go to seed – and it is fascinating to watch the tiny weevils with their trunk munching on the seeds.
The kids surprised with their knowledge of bugs and most of all how they handled the bugs and spiders.
Come along to this event and be inspired by the upcycled work of Sewing and Sanctuary and other local sewing groups and stitchers. On arrival browse a ‘not for sale’ rail of upcycled garments to spark conversation over refreshments. Following our fashion show you can learn and share new stitching skills and upcycling techniques, helping you to ditch fast fashion and love the clothes you have. We will have around 6 activity tables, each led by a local sewing group or textile artist. (see below). Meet fellow makers over freshly prepared food. Everyone can join in at the end of the show so don’t forget to wear your best work!
Jill Rutter will have a display of her indigo dyed Shibori and sashiko work.
Helena Kertesz, member of the TTT Community Garden team and Jane Clark, will each have displays of their work with natural dyes.
Read more about event organisers, Sewing & Sanctuarya Transition Town Tooting project based at Oxfam Tooting where we meet every week. All of our beautiful creations are made from rescued, reused and donated secondhand materials.
Part of Sustainable September and supported by Wandsworth Together Climate Change and Oxfam’s Secondhand September.
In the past fortnight members of Sewing And Sanctuary, the local TTT and Oxfam collaboration, have made these very beautiful textile leaves at Friday sessions and also at home. So many techniques!
The group has connected with Sewing Cafe Lancaster who called out for hand-made leaves, so it’s a warm-hearted collective and connected link from Tooting to Lancashire that’s creative and practical.
Leaves made with love by many people are being combined in a sculpture between 24 & 26 April. The piece will be called ‘Leaves of Dhaka’ and it commemorates one of the largest-ever workplace disasters, when the Rana Plaza garment-making factory in Bangladesh collapsed on 24 April 2013, killing an estimated 1,134 workers. Almost all the casualties were women and they were making garments for Western high street chains. The international charity Fashion Revolution was established following the disaster to highlight fair working practices for ‘Who Makes Your Clothes?’ – one of their taglines.
Here’s the link https://sewingcafelancaster.com/event/frw25/ to the programme when these leaves will be incorporated alongside many others. You can see some images below of them in the gallery.
All invited to drop in to the event if you are in Lancaster and you can follow Sewing And Sanctuary on Instagram at @sewingandsanctuary
Many years ago a previous community garden group grew wheat and managed to bake one loaf of bread from it. So why not try it again?
Inspired by one of our members who was asking for a source of getting wheat for her garden we also got ourselves some seeds. We tend to grow low maintenance crop in the garden as we don’t have the resource to tend to delicate plants. We also found in recent years weather volatility is driving us towards the hardier end of plants that tolerate draught and rain. So the wheat seemed a good idea.
We got in touch with the Brockwell Bake Association https://www.brockwell-bake.org.uk/ who offer ‘April Bearded’, a grain last commonly cultivated during the 19th century. Their seed stock of this was grown and harvested by Kent farmer Andrew Lingham at Court Farm, Halling. Heritage wheats are generally more suitable for non-farm and organic farm sowing as they do not require the chemical fertilizer, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides and growth regulator typically used in conventional wheat farming for success with modern wheat lines.
We prepared an area that we had to clear to give our apple tree a bit more space and sowed our 2m2 of wheat in rows. Watered it twice to allow germination and now wait and see.
Below are photos from the first 3 weeks of the wheat project. We will provide regular updates on our Community Garden Instagram.
But do come by on a Saturday 11.00 till 13.00 (and often until much later – because once you are in the garden it’s hard to leave) and join us in sowing and planting for the next season.
Whether it is cooking, growing, sewing, pickling, soldering or making : the community of Tooting has an abundance of skills and talents. On 15th March 2025 we came together for our third Tooting CAN! to share skills, meet our neighbours have some fun!
Dive into our blog below telling the story of the day (with ‘how to’ links and delicious recipes!)
Pickling and Fermenting
Ben showed us how to make kimchi, kombucha and beer pickles – we had a taste and took away some recipes to have a go for ourselves.
Gardening
Volunteers from our Community Garden joined us to be talk worms, compost and what keeps our soil healthy for growing. These images show the worm home hard at work in the garden!
We planted seeds to take it home.
Find out more about the garden and get involved here.
Mask Making
Great fun for children (and adults!) – Dora lead a team teaking us how to make fabulous cat masks using paints and textiles!
Soldering
Dermot of Repair Club led short taster sessions teaching people how to build and test a simple electronic kit, and pick up some basic soldering skills that can be used for a range of repair jobs.
We were joined by the team at Sewing and Sanctuary to make bags from upcycled materials. Some of us made a plastic free, fabric shopping bag https://morsbags.com/) with Gloria on the sewing machines, others made hand stitched drawstring bags to be used as gift bags, lavender bags or storage.
Future food Tooting!
We were joined by Fast Familiar to celebrate our favourite Tooting food hotspots and build what we think is missing… with Lego!
Origami
Maggie from Tooting Scrapstore taught us the ancient art of paper folding – including boxes, butterflies, cups, and flowers!
Want to reduce your food miles and gain a new pet? Chicken keeping may be the answer. Laila shared tips and answered questions on how to keep chickens in your Tooting back garden. Top question – how do you keep them safe from foxes?
Fantastic local photographer, Phylisha Wisdom, shared I-phone photography tips and hints (and took lots of lovely pictures of the event which we’re sharing here – thanks Phylisha!)
Abby helped us explore an accessible mindfulness activity using your senses to help you stay in the moment – easy to use in almost any environment. Find out more about the exercise here
Cooking
Our team of cooks taught us how to make make alu tikki, rustle up a hearty vegetable soup and whip up a super easy two ingredient vegan chocolate mousse – then join us all in tasting the results!
Finally we gathered together at a long table, shared the delicious food we had cooked. We celebrated all the wonderful things we had learnt and made together and our mask makers led us in a march of masks accompanied by Ranjit on the dhol!
We will run Tooting CAN again in 2026!
What skills do you have you could share?
Contact us to find out more at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
