Transition Town Tooting

Category: Community Garden

Community Garden in London SW16 run by Transition Town Tooting. Come down and get your hands dirty!

  • Week 2 of the Insect Hotel

     On Tuesday 11th November, we enjoyed the second session of our Insect Hotel Project at the Community Garden, with Year 6 from Gatton Primary School in Tooting.
     Each week there is a new group of 10 students from the two classes of Year 6, so it’s always good to welcome them to the garden before cracking into our project work. Charlie showed the 4000 yr old flint tool and the sea urchin fossil – found when the original veg beds were dug, only 3 years ago. Come along to witness them yourself.

    Can you spot the eco-system Engineer?

    It’s always good to ask the simple questions for any TTT project we undertake and our schools work is no different.

     So why build an Insect Hotel? This week’s group thought it would help the insects, give them protection and shelter and be a place to hibernate – all good, thoughtful points we reflected on for the rest of the session.

    Cutting the corner posts for the Hotel

    The measure…
    …the cut…
     Each group of 3 students figured out how to mark out before cutting. In the session, we completed work on our 4 main supporting posts, made from re-purposed fence posts. 
    …success!
      This engages maths, logical  thought and, of course, safe tool  use with every child using the  saw.

     Our group were brilliant –  engaged and enthusiastic  throughout.

    St.Bug’s Hotel!
    Exploring Insect Habitat 
     Each week, we’re playing with habitat by making a quick and dirty floor level hotel to inform the habitats we will place in the final structure. This weeks theme was crevices – nooks and crannies to encourage invertebrates and ladybirds – and was mostly built with tiles, twigs and an earth mound for our master ecosystem engineers – the humble worm. 
     So come along to the community garden, see the Insect Hotel emerge and explore the temporary accommodation the students of Gatton are creating! The Garden is open every Sunday, 11am to 1pm at 5 North Drive, Tooting, SW16 1RN.

  • ‘Growing Tooting’ – the third theme for our stand at St George’s tomorrow


    We’re keen to help more people – individuals, families, groups and clubs, enterprises – grow healthy local food in Tooting. Come and have a chat on Saturday at our stand at St George’s about how we might do this together.

    We’ll be on the 1st floor in the Lanesborough Wing, in the Ingredients Restaurant.

    We are so lucky to have the Tooting Community Garden, where we have enjoyable sessions every Sunday.

    We also want to reach out to more people:

    • who can’t get to the garden on a Sunday, 
    • or who would like to start their own growing space, 
    • or who have a garden and would like some ideas and advice, 
    • or who grow on a balcony and window box and want to be successful  ‘vertical gardeners’
    • and others…

     …and including coming to join us at the Community Garden on Sundays, special project days, or at the Open Day in June..

    We’re calling this 9-month project ‘Growing Tooting’

    Between now and the Foodival in September ’15, we’ll offer and arrange guidance and workshops on many aspects of growing.

    • We’ll encourage people to volunteer and get involved with others locally to look at many practical aspects of successful growing
    • We’ll get to grips with Tooting’s soil and conditions, with home composting and waste reduction, with choosing what and when to grow and harvest, plus sharing recipes and cooking – maybe cooking together outdoors over the summer.

    We’re not replacing the Community Garden – we want to widen the impact of what we are all trying to achieve in there.

    We hope there will be more gardens flourishing in Tooting after these next months – we have some contacts already who have space and potential energy. If you come and chat at St George’s tomorrow, we’ll ask if you have some ideas for locations and groups who would like to garden and grow.

    A successful Foodival will be a great milestone for the project as for the past seven years it has always drawn together many aspects of community growing – gardening and plants, social contacts and relationships, ideas and surprising achievements, enjoyment, fun and teamwork.

    There are many diverse growing skills that we can share in Tooting!

  • Pumpkin power in the Community Garden

    We harvested our pumpkin today:

    And within an hour or so, lunch was served (looks great, Diana!):

    Wonderful!
    More pictures: click on GARDEN in the links at top of this page.  
    All welcome any Sunday….
    (to the Garden, I mean…and yes we should cook lunch there one day)

  • Our exciting outdoor programme with Gatton School continues

    Since September we have had Year One groups coming every week to the Community Garden. It was a great run of sessions, and we didn’t miss a day because of bad weather. 
    All credit to the children, staff and volunteers.
    Now we have Reception and Year Six children coming each week until the end of term. We’ll share much more detail from both classes.
    Meanwhile, here’s a picture during last Tuesday’s short window of sunshine with Reception. Isn’t this an amazing leaf –

    See the post below for news from the new Year Six programme.

  • Construction Begins on the Insect Hotel!

    This week we embarked on our next garden-based project with Year 6 students and teachers from Gatton Primary School in Tooting. This follows the Rainwater Catchment and Cold Frame projects of last year, as reported in this blog and on the education page of Issue 6 in the Transition Free Press.

    What is an Insect Hotel?

    Over the next 7 weeks we will be making an Insect Hotel! Why? This particular project is interesting to us and the school because it turns our attention to creepy crawlies, master pollinators, mini beasts, ecosystem engineers! Essential members of the garden food chain, both up and down!

    We’ll be encouraging solitary bees, worms, ladybirds, invertebrates, centipedes and millipedes to move in – still doesn’t tickle your fancy? How about spiders and wood lice, lacewings and stag beetles not to mention fungi and bacteria. All essential for enhancing biodiversity in the garden as well as the health of our wider ecosystem – something we all need.

    It might look like this!

    How will we do this? We’ll focus on creating the habitats that they love to make a 5 Star, concierged, en suite bug palace. Who wouldn’t want to move in!

    The project engages carpentry skills, exploration into bug habitats, study into ecosystems, recycling and re-using of materials and will be an ongoing learning resource at the garden.

    This first week, our main task was to start cutting the uprights for the structure of the hotel, defining its height. For this, we’re re-using fencing timbers donated from our site at 5 North Drive.

    You can find out more at Inspiration Green’s Insect Hotels article and The Wildlife Trust Building an Insect Hotel Habitat

  • A Tale of Leaves, Compost and more – Sunday in the Community Garden

    Jenny and Rose hatched a plan to do a group effort on our leaves and compost: shift the heaps around, do some finicky work and try out ideas and new skills too.
    We did other jobs too – many thanks to all, and to Steph for cake. 
    However for photographing I was enchanted by just one story…..

        

    1 raking the leaves


    Once upon a time….
    
    18 people came along to the Garden.

    There was with an age difference of well over 60 years from youngest to oldest.


     
    

    2 making the rings
    of wire mesh


    
    

    3 weaving in sticks
    to hold it all together

    

    

    4 admiring the tower!
    5 adding the leaves










    Meanwhile, back at the compost heaps:
     
    All the separate bins were being sorted
    We were definitely doing things we’d never done before… 
     

    

    carefully removing
    ground elder roots
    older finished compost
    was put out on the beds








    And in another part of the garden, all was peaceful…

    It was a great couple of hours, and it’s not an urban fairytale:
    the story will be continued….
     
    All welcome to the Community Garden any Sunday 1100-1300
    We’re at 5 North Drive, SW16 1RN
    Notices and news on Facebook / Tooting Community Garden
    twitter: @TTTGarden

  • Tooting Community Garden Open Day 15th June – What We Enjoyed.

    On Sunday 15th June the Tooting Community Garden took part in the Open Garden Squares Weekend.
    Usually open on Sundays between 11 and 1 when anyone is welcome to come along, on the Open Day we were open all day long with a whole host of events including storytelling, human snail races, cycle for a song, broad bean harvesting and ‘guess the seed’.

    It was a fabulous day with visitors spending time in the garden.

    Here some of those involved with the Tooting Community Garden share their thoughts on putting on the open day event. We asked them two questions:

    How did it make you feel?
    What did you take away from the event?

    Here are a few of their comments, in the box below – click on the plus sign to zoom in, or see all the ‘bubbles’ by opening this link: Link to Garden Open Day Feedback
     


    Feedback from participants was collected on the day and we will be sharing that soon.

  • ‘Brightside’ article including Gatton School project in Tooting Community Garden

    Wandsworth Council’s May 2014 Brightside magazine has come though our doors, and the eagle-eyed will spot the nice short article with photo mentioning our Tooting Community Garden project with Gatton School. See it on page 8 of Brightside by clicking here.
    Here’s the photo:

    Year Six children planning how to construct the cold frame

    The article is about Project Dirt’s Wandsworth cluster for local projects: to have a look at over 90 projects, and join in, click here!.

  • Community Garden Open Day was great!

    Yesterday’s Community Garden Open Day was a lot of fun, and we’ll bring you some more updates and photos soon.

    Panorama in mid afternoon








    More than a hundred people came along: almost all of them for the first time, which is exactly the idea. There was a super diversity of visitors’ interests and we had fun with the many garden activities – something for everyone, including simply chatting.

    Winning the snail race

    The crowd enjoyed story telling in the secret garden, human snail racing, games and competitions, live music, teddy bears picnic, human fruit machine, cycle powered disco, paper making, garden advice, seed swap, lemon balm tea and a number of delicious home-made cakes and treats.

    See more pictures here

    Please stay involved: All welcome to come to the Garden any Sunday from 11-1, and to continue the enjoyment by growing local produce or cooking for the Tooting Foodival on September 13th & 14th.
    To stay informed, click on GARDEN or FOODIVAL above this blog post.

  • Open Day in the Garden 15th June

    On June 15th, as part of the Open Garden Squares weekend, TTT presents the Tooting Community Garden Open Day & Father’s Day Fete at the Community Garden, 5 North Drive, not far the Lido. Come and discover for yourself this hidden garden paradise. It’s free, naturally, and there are events for all ages including story-telling, paper making and games.

    Or maybe you would just like to come and experience this reclaimed semi-wild growing space, chill out and picnic or get some gardening advice from those involved in the projects we run with community volunteers and local schoolchildren.   

    There will also be the usual garden session from 11 till 1 for anyone interested in getting involved. 

    All welcome, whatever you fancy.