Transition Town Tooting

Category: Community Garden

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

  • In the heat at the Community Garden yesterday

    It’s been dry – and now very hot – and both have had an impact in the garden – some plants have speeded up and gone quickly to seed, some have slowed down…
    There was lots to explore and to harvest: we cleared the broad beans and the garlic; we chatted; we looked at insect predators and prey; we tended the potatoes and sweet corn; we made plans for the Tooting wheat with Juan and Anta from Naked Loaf in Furzedown (come to the Tooting Foodival 28 & 29 September and see we what we do together!).
    I’ll let the photos tell the story of the day:
    

    Sorting broad beans
    Raspberries

    Larva of seven-spot ladybird hunting down aphids
    Garlic can dry all week
    Looking at insects
    Wheat is getting tall

    

    ‘The bread is going to be great!’

    

    All welcome to join in at the Garden: every Sunday

    from 11am to 1pm at 5 North Drive behind the large brick house.

    Or email us for info at transitiontowntooting@gmail.com

    

    No need for a bag to carry beans

  • Stories Told in the Garden

    Yesterday’s Story Telling at the Community Garden with Emily Duizend (Story Island) was a really successful event, raising £240 for Macmillan Cancer Support.  The garden bedecked in bunting provided a tranquil setting for a crowd spanning the ages to relax, eat cakes and enjoy music from guitar and sitar, and stories from Emily and Vanessa.

    Many of those visiting were new to the garden, so there were many questions about the space and how it is used.

    We look forward to more chances to stage events in the garden.  Local youngsters’ learning opportunities continue in this special green space with the Gatton School visits on Tuesdays while the regular Sunday gardening sessions continue between 11 and 1.  Mail TTT if you would like to find out more.  Everyone is welcome to get involved.

    Thanks to Emily for organising this event.

  • Community Garden vegetable patch today

     






    Do come and have a closer look on Sunday 30th June for Emily’s outdoor storytelling and music session from 2:30-4:15 (see post below).
    There’s a good forecast!
    You’ll also see there is more to enjoy here….come along from 11:00 to 1:00 on the 30th if you would like to join in with the gardening.
    All welcome!

  • Storytelling and music in the Community Garden Sunday 30th June – and more

    During the afternoon of Sunday 30th June, lay down your trowels and spades and come to the Tooting Community Garden for a couple of hours of outdoor storytelling, music and cakes with Emily Duizend and friends. (Emily also took part in the Garden Open Day on June 9th).  All welcome, and we’ll be collecting for Macmillan Cancer Support.  We’ll start at 2:30 and finish by 4:15 – all the details are in the Events Calendar to the right on this blog.

    Sustainability & Corporate Responsibility, 26th June
    In a totally different setting, compared to the Garden, TTT is taking part in a workshop in Camden about Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility on 26th June from 12:30-4:00. 
    The event is aimed at people involved with current policy and practice linking jobs, organisations, training and sustainability – and it’s free and open to all. For details, please click here.

    For us at TTT, this topic relates to our projects with the Furzedown Low Carbon Zone and South Thames College. 
    Click here to have a look at our recent student-led video: ‘Better Choices for a Better Tomorrow’. 


    A special prize for anyone who comes to both days!

  • Community Garden Open Day, Sun June 9th

    The TTT Community Garden was open to the public as part of the Open Garden Squares weekend last Sunday.  Regular garden volunteer, Jenny Teasdale, reports.


    It was a time of excitement and reflection when we opened the garden to celebrate our second birthday, linking up with Open Garden Squares weekend and the Chelsea Fringe.  All the volunteers had been busy bees preparing for the big day and what a big day it turned out to be with nearly 100 visitors, young and old, enjoying the garden with us. People came out of curiosity and community, exploring the range of spaces we have created over the last two years, including the vegetable beds tended by volunteers and local school children, the new herb garden, the secret garden, the willow house and the play area. It was great to see young children taking such delight in throwing themselves into the tall grass, before settling down to hear a story from Emily in the secret garden or printing plants with Chuck under the holm oak.

    I know I speak for all our volunteers when I say that we came out of the day with a strong feeling of community and a desire to open up the garden more often for special events. We are already planning another story session, a composting workshop and some harvest days, and will be creating a new wildlife and wild flower space in the coming months.

    Everyone is welcome to come along to the garden on any Sunday this summer between 11 and 1 whether you are interested in getting involved or just curious to see this fantastic space.

  • Tooting Community Garden Open Day: 10:00 – 5:00 Sunday 9th June

    We’re a surprising community vegetable garden within a hidden-away space that we share with exuberant native trees and plants, just off Tooting Common at 5 North Drive, SW16 1RN. Look out for the signs.

    It’s our second birthday this weekend, and do come and visit our Open Day on Sunday, being held in conjunction with two great London-wide initiatives: Open Garden Squares, and the Chelsea Fringe.   

    At the start in 2011
    • Come along and relax in our secret garden-within-a-garden
    • Do some gardening if you like
    • Chat about your ideas for the space
    • Explore what Gatton School children have been doing as part of their outdoor learning programme (more info here)
    Bread wheat, autumn 2012


    There are two timed events within the day:

    12:00-14:00. We’re offering the historic and fascinating art of printing from plants. You’ll like this if you are interested in looking at plants in a new way, experimenting with textures, shapes and patterns, playing with rollers and ink, and making beautiful images to take away. Suitable for all ages, and all materials provided (and there’s plenty of leaves here for printing).

    15:00. Join Emily Duizend from Story Island for Bring me sunshine! Tales of the Sun from around the world ‘I plan to tell a Japanese and a Maori myth about the sun, maybe peppered with some sunny songs on the ukulele and a bit of harmonica’. Outdoor storytelling for all ages. www.storyisland.net
    
    

    Spring 2013

    All welcome
    admission is by voluntary donation, and under-12s are free

  • Tooting and Wandsworth bursting with activity

    I’ll let the pictures do the talking: 48 hours of local creative activities by the Wandle, in the Community Garden, on Tooting Common.
    
    

    The ‘Cabinet of Curiosities’ by the
    Wandle opposite the Ram Brewery
    ‘It’s a Wandleful Life’: opening
    the Wandsworth Arts Festival
    The climbing frame:
    freshly painted by Gatton School
    ‘Wish you were here’ in
    Tooting, with Crafty Pint

    

    

    We’ve put this off for a year- thanks loads!
    Potatoes spouting: planted on 
    TTT’s ‘Fresh & Refresh’ walk in April
    Conversation, with weeding
    A beautiful sight: telling The Jigsaw Horse story today

    We’ll share a report soon on last week’s TTT AGM & 5th Birthday party. Next weekend it’s the Day of Stories on Saturday, and a picnic at the Community Garden on Sunday. Details in the calendar….all welcome.

  • Today in the Community Garden: weather for sweaters – or flipflops?

    From window sill to garden

     

    This year’s spring wheat
    The garden will be open next Sunday
    (the Bank Holiday weekend)
    from 11:00 – 1:00
     
    Do come along: we’re at 5 North Drive, on the south side of Tooting Common
    

     

  • Another great Sunday in the Garden

    Thanks to the dozen people who came along today!
    We’ll let the photos tell the story – and too bad we missed taking pictures of us emptying dozens of bags of rotted leaves…

    
    Sorting seeds by smartphone

    

    New bed

    
    

    New path
    

  • Outdoor Learning in the Tooting Community Garden

    We’re learning with Gatton School
    We are really delighted to be hosting an exciting new programme of visits by children and staff from Gatton School in Tooting to our Community Garden near Tooting Common.
    This project has developed quickly since the first meetings in February: there is a lot of goodwill on all sides, and everyone is keen for it to work and to see how it develops.

    Before the Spring holidays, we completed the first four weeks of visits.

    Measuring around the big tree


    What’s the purpose?
    The School is keen to provide weekly experiences of outdoor learning to children – time outside, in nature, where many different projects can be planned and tried out – all influenced by the weather and the season.

    

    Inspecting a woodlouse

    There will be space in the programme for reflecting, observing, listening and appreciating time in the garden. 







    

    Digging the new plot

    Experience outdoors can link to many aspects of the School’s curriculum and community, and be enhanced by activities in School: displays, maps, assemblies, writing, art, growing seedlings to transplant back to the garden. Maybe there will be a forest of sunflowers?

    Some of the activities will explore growing food and flowers, or looking at the garden’s special landscape and developing some new features – such as making a circle of tree-stump seats for storytelling, tucked away in a quiet corner. The play furniture will be sanded and painted.

     Who is taking part?
    Each week, a quarter of the Reception age children come for an hour, and a quarter of Year Six comes for a separate hour. Others from the same year groups come in the following weeks, and then after four weeks the first groups come again, to do new things and see what has changed.

    School staff accompany the children so they can be fully supported in small groups. Members of our voluntary Community Garden group are there as well to help with planned (and maybe some surprise) activities.

    What is it? A disk of ice from the water butt

    Three weeks later: getting ready to plant potatoes

    The next months
    We’re planning to keep this weekly rotation of children going through to July. The project can have a display at the BATCA fun day held at Gatton School on June 8thand we will report monthly here on this blog. Next year we all hope we can start again in September with new school year groups.

    And: the Community Garden also continues to be open regularly for anyone who wants to come along and join in our activities each Sunday from 11:00 to 1:00, at 5 North Drive.

    Please email transitiontowntooting@gmail.comfor info: all welcome!