Well as of yesterday we are independent!  The original £88 000 of lottery money given to Horfield and District Allotment Association is all spent and after smashing all the targets set to us. We’ve exceeded our wildest dreams in terms of numbers and participation and wild schemes and have not just created a community garden but a fabulous community of gardeners!  We’ll now be looking for people who want to become members of the garden as per our new constitution with the proviso you have to want to come to our AGM in the summer and vote on stuff.  More about this next time.

And how was the first day on our own?…. LOVELY. We enjoyed a fantastic Golden Buds toddler session in the sunshine.   Then in the afternoon had a visit from one of our new Golden Groups – The Willows day care centre for adults with dementia. So we had folks from 18 months to over 80 years old enjoying the sun and getting their hands dirty.  I think that’s a happy and auspicious start to our new found independence!

AND I’m super excited say the eco build is GO! Our fabulous builder Nico was on site today getting it marked out and the digger is coming to dig the drainage trench the build will sit on, then we start filling tyres, then fast forward 8 weeks…. and we’ve got ourselves a beautiful straw bale build.  We’ll be working on it on Wednesdays and some weekends.  Whoop!

And there’s so much other great stuff going on as well!  We’ll be on site this Saturday 5th 10-2 where we’ll be reveling in the season! Katja will be showing people how to decorate eggs in the traditional German fashion and experimenting with natural dyes from 10-12 AND we’ll have a bonfire AND a Catalonian onion feast(!). Good Times.

This time last year we had no idea where we’d be now.  We could have been scaling back operations and becoming totally volunteer led instead we’re storming into the new season with metaphorical guns blazing! In the past month we’ve had about 40 people a week at our open volunteering days which is incredible. I don’t know of any project as little as ours that is so buzzing with people.  Thank you every one and here’s to plenty more years growing together!

See you in the egg-decorating-onion-eating-newt-watching-garden!

Lucy

P.S There’s still some spaces left on our Golden Adventure Days on the 8th and 15th.  6-12 years olds can expect to step into Sherwood forest spending the day with Robin Hood and his trust Badger friends, make bow and arrows, overcome adversity, thwart the evil Sheriff of Nottingham, and eat pizza.