Hi everyone!
How are you all doing? This is always one of my favourite times of year, I’m always ready to see the back of winter and after the year we’ve had this year the green shoots and leaves of spring feel especially hopeful. The warmer weather and the longer days are lovely and this year I’ve more grateful than ever for the garden and all the folks that make it possible. So if that means you THANK YOU and a special thank you to the parents of our children groups who were able to be hugely patient with us waiting for refunds and have been fantastically generous with their support and really helped keep us going in a year when we lost nearly all our income.
The garden is busy bursting back into life, the birds are singing and the polytunnel is filling up with little seedlings. This is usually there time of year I start shouting about our Spring Fair. We aren’t having one this year of course BUT we are aiming to have a socially distanced plant sale on Saturday 8th May (time to be confirmed but most likely 12-3). We’ll have a lovely range of vegetable and flower seedlings as well as herbs and lots of tough slug proof perennial flowers. So if you haven’t got space at home or a sunny windowsill to get seeds going then don’t worry we’ve got you covered. And if you haven’t got any growing space a plant is a lovely thing to give to a pal to have in a pot
All our kids’ things were cancelled over the winter lockdown but we’ll start back out toddler group tomorrow! Our afterschool clubs opened when the school went back and it was GREAT to have the kids back. We’ve had some really beautiful golden evenings full of hooning around screaming, laughing, finding newts, falling in the stream, baking cake, building a tree house, light fires and just having all the space and freedom and nooks and crannies of the garden for general good times. I think I’ve enjoyed it as much as the kids. And thank you to the lovely plotholders of the Horfield and District Allotments Association who’ve tolerate us shattering the peace three times a week, especially our extremely wonderful and tolerant nearby neighbours! And if you’ve got any overgrown kids tools, toys or dinosaurs with some life left in them that you could donate for the toddler then please get in touch!
We aren’t yet back to running like we did before. Our Wednesday volunteer days have been a couple of small groups of volunteers coming in and doing a fab job of getting all the essential work done.. Last week a volunteer told me “It’s really kept me going and even when I feel awful I’m always glad I came” . And when will be able to open ‘properly’ again? I’m not sure. We’ll take it slowly like we’ve done all year. But if you’d like to volunteer please let me know your email address we’ll have new volunteers starting one or two at a time. This way we can keep an eye on our numbers and make sure it’s not too overwhelming and everyone still feels safe.
It’s been really hard operating behind locked gates and turning away people who’ve been off work/struggling/bored/lonely and lots of people who might have really benefitted from some garden time. And if you are reading this and suffering the effects of long covid then please know we’ve always welcomed people with varying health and energy levels. You don’t have to be fit and well or to be able to lug around a wheelbarrow to come here. If you think you would like to get involved but would only be able to only come for short while and do a short and gentle sitting down job and then have a cup of tea then that’s fine! You wouldn’t have to commit to coming every week or staying all day and you could just come along when your health/energy levels and schedule allow it. If you’re not sure just get in touch and I can tell you more about what we do.
See you in the garden, hopefully sometime soon!
Lucy
Lucy Mitchell
Community Project Worker
07506 905 394
ghcgarden@gmail.com