Transition Town Tooting

Category: Community Garden

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

  • Update 2: Gatton School Garden Sessions

    This week’s garden sessions with Gatton School saw two very different events.  60 Year 1 children went on a “Bear Hunt” set out by their teachers around the site, while a more regular group of 15 Year 6 children helped clear up autumn leaves, tidy up some beds for compost and continued with the Big Build rain water harvester project.  The eight upright posts for the Big Build structure have now been set in concrete, some of it mixed by the students.  Thanks to all this week’s volunteers who helped out with these activities.

    A bear is discovered
    Concrete mixing and post setting

  • Update 1: the Big Build with Gatton School in the Community Garden

    One of the outdoor learning projects we are carrying out with Gatton School’s Year Six class is helping to build our combined rainwater catchment, shelter, suntrap, & garden bower in the Community Garden, between now and Christmas.
    Every week we’ll make progress, and share it here.
    Last week we cleared the site and dug the post holes.
    Yesterday the children raised the first upright roof support.

     
    The children mixed cement and gravel to make concrete – and mixed it again and again in several piles.
    Cement has a high carbon footprint: we are using as little as we can. Almost all the timber we need is recycled from materials found on site. We’ll be buying new fixings, and balancing that with mixing the concrete by hand – and saving water in the future.

    Many hands support the post
    Handprint in the concrete

    Taking turns with other garden activities, many hands held the timber upright , concrete was rammed in around the post, and handprints were added as a finishing touch.




    The challenge fitted well into the hour’s session and left a great feeling of achievement – I heard a girl say ‘That was brilliant’ to her friend, and one of the teachers say ‘I wish we’d done this when I was at school’.

    Sketch of how it will look

    More news next week – and do get in contact by email if you would like any more information.   

  • Outdoor Learning with Gatton School in the Community Garden in Nov & Dec 2013

    Gatton School, located near Tooting Broadway, have been coming to the Community Garden every week since March as part of their Outdoor Learning programme. At the moment we have Year One and Year Six staff and children taking part, alongside TTT volunteers.
    Between now and the end of term in December, we are running two projects: the Big Build, and Bug Hotels (we seem to be in a construction frame of mind, good for these winter weeks).

    The plan takes shape


    The Big Build is a set of weekly steps that will construct a rain-water harvesting roof (and that will also provide shelter for activities in 2014…so it is win-win!). TTT’s resident civil engineer, Richard, has developed the steps. As in all projects success depends on having a good plan (and knowing when you need to modify it) and people who want it to succeed (TTT volunteers and the children). Oh…and some decent weather. The school is linking the project with learning objectives for the children, and there’ll be a great sense of practical achievement all round when it’s all done.

    And like all projects the pre-work is important. First we have to clear the site..here is a report on yesterday’s first step:


    “This week we have started our rainwater catchment project with year 6 of Gatton School. The project, born from the necessity at the garden for stored rainwater has become a 7 week project with the children. Our aim is to teach the kids about making foundations, setting timbers straight in our wobbly garden, re-using timber and sheet material, learning about capturing rainwater – and creating a shelter, within which we shall celebrate our combined efforts in their last week of term.
    Compost looking for a heap

    However, this week was not as glamorous as all that. We cleared the remainder of the compost area, cut back the long grass around the build, sorted and stacked the useful on site materials and broke down the remainder of the black hoarding that used to run across the width of the site. Foundations next…what fun!”



    The second project is Bug Hotels. This project will use recycled materials to provide shelter for the beneficial insects and other creatures that live in the Garden. In fact with dozens of children involved, the Community Garden’s mini-beasts are going to be very well housed. Again, this project can link with activities in school, and useful preparation can be done at school if we are rained off.

    Palatial overwintering site

    Small and simple accommodation










    We know that above all these projects are about offering two valuable experiences: enjoying time oudoors, and learning new things in a creative way, together. Even if project plans get stretched, it’s great to have the opportunity- plus cooperation between the school and TTT -so we can all experiment. We’ll let you know how we progress!

  • Wildlife Gardening Forum: conference 21 Oct 13

    TTT joined this bi-annual conference yesterday at the University Hospital, Coventry. The Wildflife Garden Forum is a voluntary UK-wide group including local and national projects and charities, researchers and academics, local authorities and government agencies. The Forum’s intention is to share evidence and practice about the value of wildlife to gardening (and people) – and vice versa.
    Yesterday’s conference topic was ‘Human Health and Wildlife Gardening’ – please see the agenda here. An excellent range of speakers covered up-to-date research and personal experience of the links between our own health, wellbeing and happiness, and the health and biodiversity of wildlife.
    It’s a topic that’s one of the keys to sustainability in Tooting.
    A very exciting feature of the day was the focus on wildlife and nature’s role across the NHS itself: including softer benefits such as the value of amenity and beauty, and harder evidence including faster recovery times. The University Hospital’s Sustainable Development Manager gave us a tour of some of the easy-to-see elements of working with nature: the Hospital has created a wild space of reeds and young trees, next to a small river newly-populated by otters.

    We have some good new contacts and ideas for taking forward these possibilities in Tooting – in a very different setting from a new-build hospital, but still with plenty of potential.

    Please get in contact with TTT if you would like to join us to explore the links between local wildlife, and our health and wellbeing.

    PS: have a look at our short report from a Forum meeting last year. The Forum is developing its website, in the short term info can be found here.

    And, from last Sunday in the Community Garden – when the sun was out for the exact timings of the session:

    Graham was given this
    birch seedling at the
    Environmental Association for
    Universites and Colleges conference
    several years ago. It’s new home is
    the Community Garden – thanks!
    Four ‘new’ people came along to
    the Garden having heard about us
    at the Foodival. Welcome!
    And we also gathered more leaves
    to experiment with for
    papermaking

    

  • Garden tea in the sun, and a visit in the rain

    In the beautiful weather of Sunday 6th October we made tea at the Community Garden using our volcano kettle, trying out some of the wild plants Mark Watson suggested during the Tooting Foodival.

    

    We sorted sunflower seeds for
    drying and sowing next year

    As well as enjoying cakes made with Garden brambles and local apples (thanks to the bakers Charlotte, Liz, and Gillian and Phoebe), we did some gardening too. We tidied the herb bed; planted elephant garlic; turned over weeds to dry in the sun. Thinking of future possibilities, we looked at samples of home-made paper incorporating garden plants – an idea for the garden-grown wheat straw that we have saved.

    The visit in the rain was today, from Lina and Emil who are starting up a new project in Malmö, Sweden – a city farm to

    be run as a local food production, green employment and sustainability hub – maybe the first in Sweden. We’ll share more when it all gets going.

    

  • Plenty in the Edible Garden

    Plenty in the Edible Garden at the weekend including this rather sorry looking but unperturbed fox cub!  That garlic should be good for those striving to be crowned “Top Tooting Cook” at Foodival.  Still plenty of time to enter, though judges have already ruled that “Renard du jardin communautaire au gratin” will not be a permitted dish …

  • TTT’s latest email update Sept 19th: local food and growing with Edible Gardens and the Foodival

    The latest update is all about food and growing local – because we have the Edible Gardens Open Day on Sat 21st, and then the Foodival on Sept 28th & 29th. All welcome to both!

    In case you don’t receive our updates by email – you can read a copy by clicking here. Do mail us at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com if you would like to be on the distribution list.

  • Edible Open Gardens Day in Community Garden, Saturday 21st Sept

    ‘Edible Open Gardens Day’ celebrates local gardening and food, and is taking place across dozens of London gardens.
    Click here for Sustain’s blog about the event.

    We’re pleased to be taking part, and the Tooting Community Garden will be open for an extra day from 11:00 until 3:00 on Saturday 21st September.
    Please come and visit if you have not been before, or if you have been many times….
    ALL WELCOME – and it’s free.

    Click here to read a copy of the flyer, which includes some of the plant prints that the Challenge volunteers made recently in the garden.

    We’ll be gardening, harvesting and sharing knowledge on local growing and cooking. There’ll be plenty to do for adults, children and families.

    Bring a picnic – that will make the sun come out!
    And we’ll be preparing for the 6th Tooting Foodival – details here – on the following weekend (28 & 29 Sept) – do come and give us a hand.

    Have a look at recent activity in the garden on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tooting-Community-Garden/216577221715360

    For any more information, email: transitiontowntooting@gmail.com
    See you there!

  • Young people volunteering at the Tooting Community Garden, Sunday 8th Sept

    Thanks a lot to the young people who came along to the garden for four and a half hours, in rain and sun (they are taking part in a Challenge Network programme).
    What did we do?
    The young people selected from a set of helpful jobs in the garden:

    > They ground our bread wheat into flour
    They used creative ways to thresh the wheat (to separate the seeds from the heads); and to winnow it (getting rid of the chaff mixed in with the wheat kernels). Then they milled it into flour. (Come to the Tooting Foodival and you can try Tooting Sourdough bread made with this flour by Furzedown’s Naked Loaf)

    Or: gently treading on the heads

    Bashing the seed heads against the wall

    

    Milling the wheat into flour

    

    Blowing the chaff away
    > They saved home-grown sunflower seeds to sow next year
    > They picked a lot of brambles for the Tooting Foodival
    > They cleared up rubbish out in the entrance to the Garden
    > They prepared a plot and then sowed ‘green manure’ seed
    > They made a series of plant prints for us to use as posters:
     
    Pleased with a full-size print of a sweet corn plant
     
    The day – like any day in the Community Garden – was not only about doing tasks. We looked at what’s growing, tried radishes and rocket, chatted together, sheltered under the holm oak for lunch, experienced of being outdoors all day. And the group prepared a bit more for the one-day project they have designed, which takes place on 21st September on Tooting Common – more info to come on their Facebook page here.
     
    Many thanks to the other garden volunteers and families who came along yesterday, and to Adrian for the loan of the flour mill.
    It was a really good day!
     
    PS: in a fortnight, on Saturday 21st Sept from 11:00-3:00, the Community Garden will be open as part of the London-wide Edible Gardens Open Day. More info to come.
    

  • Managing our water use so the Garden flourishes

    This Sunday July 21st, from 1130-1200, come along to help us plan our water use in the Community Garden.
    Maybe this weather will continue, or maybe not: in any case there are some practical short term and long term choices to be made linked with water use. What is doing well and what is not? Can we construct some water catchment and storage – or just install a tap? What different plants could we grow? How will we look after them?

















    For interest:

    • In June there was only a quarter of the normal rainfall locally
    • It has not rained in the garden for 15 days – in July there has been just one mm of rain (July’s average is 40 mm for the month)
    • sweet corn needs 20 litres of water per square metre 2x a week
    • our runner beans need half that

    Do come along – and /or join in with ‘normal’ gardening between 11 & 1.
    The forecast…is for cloud!
    We’re at 5 North Drive, south of Tooting Common, and the entrance is in the fence to the left of the large brick house. All welcome!