Author Archives: GHCG

Harvest Fair

September 24, 2013

funny veg judging

Hi everyone

Here’s the update you’ve all been waiting for.. it’s the Harvest Fair 2013 stats!
Number of people through the gate: 259 (but the clicky counter was lost and we think it was more!)
Amount taken in total (net) : £689.68
Number of of scaletrix bikes big enough for grown ups: 0
Jars of chutney sold: 42
Harvest crowns made: 35
Requests on the human jukebox: 28
Hilarious vegetable creatures made: 45
Number of pizzas made: shed loads!
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So it was an absolutely lovely day – our best event yet I think. We were up against stiff competition locally but still had a good turn out and because we didn’t have the biting, cold wind that usually marks our events lots of people stayed all day. In fact people didn’t want to leave! Sure we all missed the excitement of trying to stop gazebos blowing away but the warm breeze carried the sound of music and laughter around the garden.
 scaletrix 2
Another reason it was so lovely was we had enough volunteers so a massive and heartfelt thank you to everyone who helped on the day and the support from the allotment association.  However this is the last event that we do while we have the funding helping with costs and covering my time, so if you factored in the time spent organising the fair then the hard truth is we would have only broken even and we need to keep this in mind as we make the garden financially sustainable.
 pizza oven tony
So looking forward to next year we are looking for people to join our management committee in the next few months.  People who are happy to take on the organising of events, pizza on the plot fundraising nights, do publicity, write articles, make decisions, etc. You don’t need to be someone who volunteers in the garden on Wednesdays, just someone who cares about the garden and can come to meetings one evening every 6 weeks or so.  This is the essential if the garden is going to continue to have a wide reach.  We also need money!! and we’ll have more on our “Friends of Golden Hill Scheme” scheme and Crowdfunding plans coming soon.
So for now a massive pat on the back for everyone involved in the fair and we’ll be firing up the frog tomorrow for well earned pizzas in the garden at about 1ish.  Our next Saturday open day is Saturday 5th Oct, and more info coming next week about the green roof building workshop on the 20th Oct and half term kids activities.

There’s still loads to harvest and loads to do, so hopefully see you in the garden,
Lucy
P.S Also looking to the future and money making schemes – does anyone know how to make Christmas wreaths??
Lucy Mitchell

Community Project Worker
The Golden Hill Community Garden: Horfield’s Accessible Allotment and Edible Forest
07506 905 394
 
 

Harvest Fair and a call to arms!

August 31, 2013

Hi everyone

It’s been a mixed couple of weeks –
Summer playscheme is done and dusted and lovely, we were never fully booked but the kids (and me, Clare and Nikki!) loved it and it showed our fabulous versatile garden is up for everything!
Last Wednesday was amazing – we fired up the frog, scoffed pizzas and feasted on our first watermelon and all felt right with the world
BUT we’ve got bad news. We haven’t got either of the big funding bids that would pay for the garden to continue in the same way for the next 3 to 5 years so the money tap gets turned off as our funding finishes March 31st 2014.
This was a bit of a blow and means big changes (there’s more info about this on the website in the notes from volunteer meetings page). It means if we want the garden to continue to flourish and thrive, provide a supportive space for everyone, to carry on putting on community events and kids activities then we will need your help.
There’ll be loads more info about this at the Harvest Fair on the 14th September 1-4pm and it means this event has now taken on a lot more importance as it’s the last chance we’ll get to tell the community face to face what’s going on and what we are all about.
Harvest Fair13_poster_A6_30-8-page-0
This means your help is really vital.  Our lovely events are vital part of our place in the community.   We want to wow people with what we’ve achieved – and what we have achieved in 2 years IS incredible- get more people involved and raise money.  This is more important than ever as we’ll be asking people to pay to join a ‘Friends of Golden Hill’ scheme as well as looking for new committee members to take on some of the work that I currently do.   
This Harvest Fair will show us if we, as a group, have the energy/will/inclination to keep running community events next year and we also really want to give everyone who comes a really really lovely day.  So lovely they fall in love with the garden and give us their time/energy/money!
So far not enough people have offered time on the day and we need you so that the volunteers aren’t run ragged. Just an hour is a huge help and loads of fun!  The allotment association are organising the tea tent (hooray!)  and we’ve got loads of great stuff lines up but what we need is –
Volunteers for the gate
Leaflet deliverers (if you can just do one or two roads round the garden that’d be ace)
Putting up posters on Gloucester Rd
Cake bakers
People on the day to make help pizzas (this is ace fun!)
Someone to keep an eye on the pond dippers (mostly sitting on a bench and making sure no one prods the frogs too hard)
People on the info stand – VERY IMPORTANT
People to help kids/adults to make funny creatures out of vegetables
Help with tidy up/set up
Or if you can think of anything you’d bring along to make the day special then let me know.
Also if you can just come along on the day that’s great! bring friends, tell people, spread the word, find us on Facebook -‘like’ the page and share the poster.  Let’s do this!
Now is the the time, this is your call to arms – your community garden needs you!
See you in the garden
Lucy
P.S. Also get involved with the big chutney making happening on the 7th – I’ll send out more details about that next week – but we need your excess veg, apples and a cheerful army of choppers and stirrers!
Lucy Mitchell

Community Project Worker
The Golden Hill Community Garden: Horfield’s Accessible Allotment and Edible Forest
07506 905 394

Say hello to our little froggy friend

July 22, 2013

BREAKING NEWS – first tomatoes ready in polytunnel and….. we finished our froggy pizza oven and it looks AMAZING! Image

Thank you to everyone who got involved digging, stamping, moulding and sculpting in the sunshine – it was so much fun and we are sooooo happy and proud of the end result.  Thanks to the lovely Rachel Baker for guiding us through the process!
AND dates for your diary – 7th September we’ll be having a big chutney making day! (Chutney-geddon? Preseverathon? Chutfest? snappy name suggestions welcomed).  We’ll be accepting donations of any and all excess produce from veg growers on our site and anywhere – apples, damsons, plums, courgettes, runner beans etc and then spending the day chopping, chin-wagging and cooking down at the kitchen at the community center in St Werburghs.. Anyone who knows a thing or two about chutneys is very welcome as is anyone who ever wanted to learn.  You can mooch along for an hour or stay all day.  We’ll be selling the results on….
14th September at our Harvest Fair.  Expect all the loveliness of one of our community events now combined with the Horfield and District Allotment Association Summer Show so we’ll have with a competition of best vegetable basket, best scarecrow etc as well as music, cake, facepainting, kids activities and now including 100% more pizzas!
The Golden Summer of FUN activity days start next Tuesday and we’ve still got spaces so please let everyone with 7-14 year olds who might be bored/glued to X-box this summer know about it. Me, Claire and Nikki have amassed a war chest of games, crafts, nature fun and general outdoor ace-ness.. I can hardly wait!
See you in the garden,
Lucy
Lucy Mitchell

Community Project Worker
The Golden Hill Community Garden: Horfield’s Accessible Allotment and Edible Forest
07506 905 394

Sunshine Times

July 12, 2013

Isn’t the weather gorgeous!  What better time to come and enjoy the lovely garden, with courgettes bursting out everywhere, lettuce coming out of our ears, chillis turning red as you look at them and everything is growing and growing. This weeks’s harvest included broad beans, garlic, sweetpeas, red cabbage, dill, parsley, beetroot, carrots, baby turnips, chillies, and strawberries. Yum!

 
On Saturday we had a fabulous day starting the pizza oven build, digging clay from the pond, stamping it into cob and generally getting head to toe filthy.  We were helped through the whole process by the lovely Rachel Baker.  We’ll be finishing up on 20th July so let me know if you want to come and get involved.   The current plan is to sculpt it into a big froggy face with the wide mouth to feed uncooked pizzas into and I guess the frog will spit them back out cooked.  Again yum!  
Inline image 1
  
I’m also happy to say we’ve recruited our playwork leader for the Golden Summer of Fun activity days.  She’s called Clare and is brimful of experience, imagination and exciting ideas.  Me, her and Nikki are going to be transforming the garden into a place of exploration, art, wild fun, outdoor games and laughter.  Expect stuff like blindfold nature walks, digging clay from the pond for scultpures, building and decorating shelters to eat freshly cooked pizza in!  We’ve started getting children booked on and would LOVE your help promoting it so PLEASE forward the poster on to people with kids age 7-14 and/or print it out and put it up and work if you can.  It’s going to be an amazing experience for everyone involved.  It’s £25 a session including a delicious lunch but only £100 if you book on all five and we have discounts for siblings!  
 
Another idea in the pipeline is a big community chutney making day, I’d love for us to collect up surplus produce from plotholders and have a day of chopping and cooking and singing and chopping and laughing and chopping and cooking down at the community kitchen in Stokes Croft.  If this sounds as fabulous to you as it does to me and you would like to help make this day happen by taking it on as a project then get in touch as I’ve run out of hours in the week  
 
And quick reminder it’s our volunteer meeting next Weds 17th at 1:30 – feel free to come along or let me know if there’s anything you think we should be doing/talking about and I’ll pop it on the agenda.  The notes from last one are up on the website.
 
See you in the garden!
 
Lucy

June 20, 2013

 

I’m really excited to announce we’ll be running a playscheme this summer at the garden so if you know any 7-14 year olds who like making fires, building shelters, sculpting clay, outdoor cooking in our pizza oven, running around outside and loads of outdoor FUN then get them booked on.  It’s running for five Tuesdays from 30th July and is £25 for 10am – 4pm which includes a delicious outdoor cooked lunch!

Golden Summer poster 4 small

Please spread the word!  Places are limited to 16 per day and booking is essential.   We also recruiting a play leader to run the sessions with me (see http://www.voscur.org/jobs/64761) so if you know anyone qualified and dynamic let please pass it on!!

AND we’re building our pizza oven Saturday July 6th, and July 2ord 10-4.  It’s free but you have to book a place as places are limited.   If you don’t let me know and just turn up on the day it’ll probably be fine but be aware you might not get the chance to get involved if there’s too many people.
cob pizza oven poster
The garden is currently buzzing with life, the courgettes coming through in the polytunnel, the tadpoles growing legs in the pond and as the word spreads all sorts of groups are coming from all over the city and getting involved – adults with learning difficulties from Soundwell! pond dippers from St Judes!   The weekend’s howling winds may have knocked our lupins for six but it’s onwards and upwards towards the golden summer!!
See you in the garden,
Lucy
Rosemary early years pond dippers
Lucy Mitchell

Community Project Worker
The Golden Hill Community Garden: Horfield’s Accessible Allotment and Edible Forest
07506 905 394

June 11, 2013

Hi everyone,

Okay there’s so much fabulous stuff going on! firstly….  *drumroll*… Pete and co and have only gone and done it and the Tower of Power and the solar pump WORKS!  It wasn’t easy but water from our 750l tank has been pumping up the hill to the 6000l tank at the top and our tank replenished by ground water. This sunny weekend the mains water was turned off  and the plot holders have been watering with our water!  Hat’s off to Pete Clee for his maverick vision and hard work. There’s still a few glitches to be worked out but the Lord Mayor Faruk Choudhary and Steve Clampin (Bristol City Council Allotments Manager) came to the Get Growing Trail on Saturday and were very impressed.  I’ll put a page up on the website with more details of the system soon.

 Inline image 1   Inline image 2

And on Saturday the sun shone and we were open for volunteer and visitors on the Get Growing Trail and we raised over £100 selling cakes and plants!  This seemed like a tidy sum until I got home and checked my email to find out it looks like we weresuccessful in our funding bid to get money to build a proper shelter.  WHOOOP!!  We’ve a few formalities to go through but thank you to the National Lottery Awards for All (and to everyone who buys lottery tickets) for £8700!
The building will be a vital part of making our garden more accessible to people who want to be involved all year but can’t really cope with the cold weather- sometimes even our hardiest volunteers have had to leave sooner than they’d like because of feet so cold they hurt. This winter we’ll be able to sit back, drink tea, leaf through seed catalogues in our cosy cob building and wriggle our toes in front of the stove. Of course we’ll have to build it first and that’ll be the fun part! Anyone with any interest in eco building get in touch. It’ll be a community effort and an amazing learning opportunity and we’ll probably get started in September.
MORE exciting up and coming dates, still there’s still a few places left on the Pests, Diseases, Weeds and Problems workshop on the 23rd June AND the cob pizza oven building is still planned for 6th July and 23rd July 10am – 4pm – an great opportunity to learn how to make a cob pizza oven for free!! But numbers are limited so let me know if you want to be involved!
 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Okay this post is already too long so I’ve save the info about the summer playscheme for 7-14 year olds for the next one and I’ll just quickly finish by saying a worker from Freeways supported housing recently described the Golden Hill Community Garden as place where “Everyone values everyone and nobody judges anyone”.  That’s something for all of us involved to be really proud of, and if you’re not involved yet- come be part of this special place!
See you in the garden,
Lucy
The Lord major, his son, Elinor, Clare, Pete, me and Steve Clampin

 

Get Growing Trail this Saturday! (with celebrity guests the Lord Mayor and some fish we weren’t expecting)

June 4, 2013

This Saturday 8th June is our usual open Saturday 10-3 and we’re opening as part of the Get Growing Trail.  It’s a fab city wide weekend long event when loads of community gardens open their doors (including the community orchard on the same site as us !full details at www.bristolfoodnetwork.org).
I see from the leaflets that we have promised “Cakes and plants for sale as well as tours, chats and pond dipping for kids and the young at heart”  So please if you are around this Saturday and would like to help us deliver any of that it would be much appreciated.  Any one fancy baking us a cake or flapjack or buns? Let me know!
As it’ll also be a usual open day there’ll be the usual jobs list (in it’s new revolutionary form!) AND we are expecting a  visit from the Lord Mayor at 10:15 so it’d be great if some early birds were around then to chat to him about all we have achieved.
Also check out some surprise new arrivals in the pond!  Can you spot them? Who knows who they hitched a ride in with!?!
surprise new arrivals!

See you in the garden!

Lucy
Lucy Mitchell
Community Project Worker
The Golden Hill Community Garden: Horfield’s Accessible Allotment and Edible Forest
07506 905 394
 
 

May 30, 2013

Hi everyone,

We had a great day yesterday, harvest loads of spring cabbage and new potatoes from the poly tunnel to make way for planting tomatoes and cucumbers.  Delicious!
 
 
Also for those interested in the workings of the garden we had out first proper meeting of Wednesday volunteers last week which was great and the notes are up on the meetings page.  Next meeting 19th June 1:30. There will also be cake as we celebrate midsummer.
 
More exciting news – I can confirm that the solar panels are fully installed on the Tower of Power, the pump has arrived and is in place and all that remains is for them to be connected and then Bristol’s newest and most ecological water feature can kick into action! Hopefully providing water for 200 plot holders and irrigating polytunnels whilst we sit back and feast on
watermelons.
        The Tower of Power
 
And spread the word we’re selling plants and welcoming kids for pond dipping at our open day/work day on June 8th as part of the Get Growing Trail.  The tadpoles are chubby spotty beauties at the moment and just about to start growing legs – they grow up so fast!
 
See you in the garden,
 
Lucy
 
Lucy Mitchell

Community Project Worker
The Golden Hill Community Garden: Horfield’s Accessible Allotment and Edible Forest
07506 905 394
 
 

Pests and plans and pizza

May 21, 2013

Hi everyone,
Here’s the poster for our next workshop!
weeds diseases pests and problems poster (small)It’s taught by Horfield allotment’s very own Tim Foster.  He is without doubt Bristol’s best gardening tutor – I still refer to the notes I took on the course I went on with him years ago!  Expect practical, useful organic solutions from a someone who REALLY knows what he’s talking about.  It’s another bargain at £20 and our last workshop sold out so get in touch if you want a place and please forward the poster on to anyone you might know being pestered by pigeons, menaced by mildew or, erm… battered by bindweed (!).
Also this Wednesday (tomorrow) we are having our first user group meeting at 10:30 -11:30 so come along if you’d like to be part of the group the helps steer us forward.  They’ll be tea and biscuits of course.
We WON’T be opening on the first Saturday of the month for our work day next month as we’re open the following Saturday 8th June as part of the Get Growing Trail for pottering, pond dipping and a plant sale.
We’ve also been busy with visits from Pied Piper Nursery, pond dippers from Ashley Down Infants and a couple of groups from Headway (supporting adults with head injuries) have got involved and taken on one of our new raised beds.
Inline image 1
Looking forward we’ll be building our clay pizza oven 10am-4pm on 6th and 20th July.  This is going to run on a optional donation basis of £10 per session to help pay for our lovely tutor Rachel Baker.  Volunteers get preference and then people who can make both sessions.  Children welcome.
This week we’ll be planting out our beans, cucumbers and courgettes, saying good bye to the last of the winter veg as we harvest the last of the kale and purple sprouting broccoli and hello to summer as we harvest the first of new potatoes from the polytunnel- yum!
See you in the garden!
Lucy