Author Archives: GHCG

Fair weather friends!

May 14, 2013

imageHi everyone

Well, wasn’t the fair brilliant?! And in case it was just a blur of music, laughter and colour, here are the stats to bring it in to focus
People though the gate : 592 (beating last year’s grand opening event!)
Total money taken: A whopping £1116.99!
Number of newts and tadpoles found by pond dippers: countless
Number of people who fell in the pond: only 1!
Number of musical acts performing on the decking:4
Number of visiting Mayors in red trousers: 1
Number of raffle prizes: 24
Amount raised in raffle: £456!!
Strength of wind on the beaufort scale: 6
Number of gazebos that actually blew away: 0!
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It was a joy to see so many happy smiling faces, scoffing cakes, wining raffle prizes, sharpening tools, buying veg, wearing crown, making badges and running round looking like pirates/spiderman/a fish.  And who would have thought we mange to find a window between the morning’s drizzles and the evening’s hail storms and there was even a little sunshine!
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Thank you so everyone who came and made the event so lovely and a special thank you to everyone who volunteered and as usual went above and beyond.   BUT we were a lot lower on cakes than last year and we could definitely do with some more help on the day so the volunteers can take a little breather and have a cup of tea.  Sooooo the next big event will be the Summer Show/Harvest Fair 14th September – get it in your diaries now and come help a create a lovely community event!
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Also our next big open day is 8th June 11-3 as part of the Bristol Get Growing Trail, another chance to buy plants, eat cakes, pond dip and enjoy the garden. So tell your friends and get involved!
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And in other news it’s onwards and upwards for the growing season, tomorrow we’ll get on with planting out veg in our polytunnels tomorrow, keep planting more seeds, and anyone who makes it down tomorrow we’ve a feast of perpetual spinach to harvest and more purple sprouting broccoli – yum!
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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

SPRING FAIR TODAY!!

May 11, 2013

Morning everyone!
Okay so the weather could be better but that’s never stopped us in the past. In fact what’s a Golden Hill Community Garden event without the threat of rain and/or gazebos blowing away? This time last year we were underwater and we still had a good time!  That said I am fully expecting the wind to die down and the sun to come out between 1-4.   People are welcome along to help secure gazebos and lash down the bunting and make the site look even more lovely than normal from 10am.
For the early birds out you might have just heard me gabbling away BBC radio Bristol I think aside for the gabbling I think it went well but at 6:35am I’m never my most coherent.
Today we’l have the Bristol major George Ferguson popping in at some point as well as pond dipping, badge making, face painting and tool sharpening going on all day.  Plants for sale include tomatoes, cucumbers, brussel sprouts, broccoli, cabbage, cosmos, sweet peas, leeks and salads! All at very reasonable prices.
So bring cake, bring yourselves and bring all your friends and anyone you see in the street… and probably best to bring a waterproof – just in case.
See you there!
Lucy

dancing on the decking

The Spring Fair!!

May 6, 2013

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Our beautiful new sign is up in time and everything has come together ready for next Saturday’s Spring Fair

We’ve loads of veg and flower seedlings available at bargain prices! And Tim Foster will be showing people how to maintain and properly sharpen your tools, so bring along any blunt hoes, secateurs, spades etc and find out how much easier gardening can be.

In the kids area we’ll have badge making, art activities and face painting AND there’s a chance to look for newts and tadpoles whilst pond dipping in our lovely pond.

Also loads of great live music! Singing from Bishop Rd Parents Choir at 1!

Live music from the Banda Band and Irish set dancing 1:20-2 And again at 2:30)

Pigsty Morris 2 – 2:30

City of Bristol Learner Brass Band 2:45-3:15

Bristol Occasional Seasonal Music Band 3:45-4

Free free to bring along any donated cakes on the day.

Whoop! and here’s to more sunshine!

Lucy

spring flyer 2013 compressed

THE BEST RAFFLE EVER

April 25, 2013

raffle

Right then.  With a massive thanks to Karen D and co we have an amazing set of raffle prizes!!  including a 1st Prize of a 3 night off-peak stay in a yurt on an organic farm for up to 5 people at  The Yurt Farm, Crynfryn, Penuwch, Tregaron, Ceredigion, Wales SY25 6RE (www.theyurtfarm.co.uk) and a 2nd prize of 2 weekend tickets to the Sunrise festival near Bath May 30th – June 2nd and prizes from River Cottage, the Relaxation Centre, the Community Farm, LornaLou Ltd, Cafe Maitreya, the Better Food Company, Harvest, the Watershed Cinema, the Tobacco Factory, Lush, Grape and Grind, Beast, Pearce’s hardware, Horfield Leisure Centre, Fizz Haircuts, Bliss, Vets4Pets, A E Huggins , Shake Wrap and Roll , Beast and others. Check out the full list below .

Tickets are £1 each and can be purchased either on the day or in advance directly from Paul on 0117 942 8003 or on Wednesdays 10-4 from the Garden OR Saturday the 4th 10-2 or keep you eyes peeled at the Picton St Market 4th May.

The prize draw will be held at 3:15pm on Saturday May 11th at our Spring Fair.  And if you are interested in helping us to build the cob Roundhouse as a community activity, get in touch!

1st prize a 3 night off-peak stay in a yurt on an organic farm for up to 5 people at  The Yurt Farm, Crynfryn, Penuwch, Tregaron, Ceredigion, Wales SY25 6RE (www.theyurtfarm.co.uk)

and a 2nd prize of 2 weekend tickets to the Sunrise festival near Bath May 30th – June 2nd

Other prizes kindly donated by local businesses (in no particular order) are:

2 x tickets for the River Cottage Autumn Fair at River Cottage HQ in Axminster on 7th or 8th September

A voucher for a spa day at the Relaxation Centre in Clifton

A  Gert British veg box from the Community Farm worth £15

£15 voucher to spend at the Better Food Company store on Whiteladies Road

A voucher for 2 Watershed Cinema tickets

2 tickets to see Napoleon: A Defence at the Tobacco Factory on Thursday 30th May

A voucher for breakfast for 2 at Café Maitreya

A Smatta from Lorna Lout Ltd (a mat for children to play with toys on so that they are easy to put away afterwards)  www.smatta.co.uk

3 x family swim sessions from Horfield Leisure Centre

A gift box from Lush

A wicker trug from Pearce’s Hardware

A bottle of wine from Grape and Grind

A set of allotment inspired creatured postcards from Sheena Vallely

A carrier bag of goodies from Harvest

An alpaca fleece from Hidden Valley Yurts in the Wye Valley

2 x pot pourri holders from Bliss

A guitar lesson with Leo James www.leojames.co.uk

A t-shirt from Beast

A box of chocolates from A E Huggins

A box of chocolates from the Co-op

Wraps vouchers from Shake Wrap and Roll

A voucher for a consultation with Vets4pets including one vaccination

2 x vouchers for a haircut from Fizz

Home Brew kit from Brewers Droop

 

Music! Fun! Cake! and YOU!

April 15, 2013

 Hi everyone!

 
The sun’s shining, everything is sprouting and growing and the spring fair is just around the corner 11th May 1-4.  It’s all coming together!  The morris dancers have confirmed, we’ll have beautiful harp music, Irish music, a choir and hopefully a brass band.  We’re offering pond dipping and badge making for the littles and Tim Foster will be showing people how to sharpen their tools properly.  Four fabulous volunteers are busy badgering the merchants of Gloucester Rd for prizes for the raffle and we’re having a ‘Best vegetable JOKE’ competition!
 
Sooooo please let me know if you’re available to help out on the day or in the run up to the fair
 
I’m looking for
Someone to help with publicity – i.e. putting all our details out on various websites and what not
People to help putting posters up Gloucester Rd
If you live on a road near the the allotment and can deliver flyers up your street
 
On the day
Cake bakers!
Plant donators!
People to look after the gate for a hour or so
People to man the cake and tea seal
People to man the plant stall
Anyone who can help running pond dipping with kids for an hour or so
Anyone who can help making badges with kids/anyone for an hour or so
Face painters
People to offer to come early and help out up the bunting and gazebos from 10:30 clock on the day
Anyone can stay stay at the end to help get tidied up (this only took about 30 mins last time)
ALSO I was thinking that we might serve soup!  This is reliant on having enough volunteers to serve it as well as someone who likes cooking huge batches of soup!
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If anyone is happy and flexible to just volunteer where necessary and to do any of these things for most of the day that would INCREDIBLE!
 
We are also looking for gazebos, chairs. 
 
And for your efforts you are rewarded not just with the joy of being part of such a lovely event you’ll also get a free piece of cake (and maybe soup!) and a hot drink. This event is totally reliant on you folks stepping up to volunteer so if you haven’t managed to come down to the garden this is a great time to get involved
 
The garden is looking fabulous with all it’s new raised beds and the solar pump should be in place then so we can shake off that ‘building site’ look we’ve had for so long round the second poly tunnel.  In the next few weeks we’ll be busy tidying up, making signs, and carrying on planting, planting, planting!
     
Looking forward to all the offers of help coming flooding in!
 
Lucy

March 26, 2013

Right I’m back off my holiday and a little horrified by the weather but it takes more than an icy wind to stop us up at the Golden Hill.  We’ve lettuce, sweet peas, radish, spinach, beetroot, broadbeans and more coming up in the polytunnels.  People have been busy whilst I was away and it was great to see more new beds springing up, the big mound is also ready for epic willow planting and new area nearly ready for little kids -and the young at heart- to have good dig around. ???????????????????????????????

More good news is our Brambles to Broccoli workshop for 7th April has sold out (whoop!) and it’s time to start thinking the next event  – the Spring Fair!  Last year over 500 people braved icy winds so surely the weather gods owe us sunshine for this one weather.  Over 50 volunteers who helped make the last fair fantastic; baking cakes, singing, making teas and helping on stalls.  So I’m hoping you guys will step up again and make it another fabulous day.  It’ll be 1pm-4pm 11th May so pop the date in your diary if you haven’t already.  If you’ve any fun ideas for a kids activity or know any musicians or story tellers who might like to get involved then please please please let me know.  Also if you’d like to be part of organising any aspect of event then get in touch.
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In the next update – more info on us selling seedlings and compost – watch this space!
See you the garden!

 

Next Workshop, Volunteer Gathering AND plant fostering…

February 18, 2013

Hi everyone,

It’s a bit of a whirlwind down at the Golden Hill Community Garden at the moment as we leap into spring mode and start planting our first seeds and carrying on our building projects. The new beds are popping up like mushrooms! The raised bed building workshop was a great success, we had a lovely day and 9 happy participants got four fab beds built, increased their power tool confidence, left ready to build beds for themselves and we got a bit of money to cover the costs – Everyone’s a winner!???????????????????????????????

So now I can announce our next workshop.

Brambles to broccoli poster compressed

Published author, excellent workshop leader and all round nice guy Dave Hamilton will be teaching people how bring an overgrown plot into production without breaking the bank or too much back backing work. We’ve upped our prices but it’s still a bargain! It’d be great to get this poster up far and wide and if the workshop gets booked up we’ll run it again. So please print it out and put it up where you can – garden centres, notice boards at work or in cafes, allotment gates, etc. I’m happy to post you a poster if you don’t have a colour printer, or send one laminated if it’s going up outdoors. And if know anyone taking on a new allotment or struggling with an overgrown one then let them know. This would be a HUGE help.

A reminder that this Wednesday is our first Volunteers Annual General Gathering (V.A.G.G!) at 3pm. Please come along and have your say about last year and give your ideas and opinions on plans for the year ahead.

And finally another call out for plant fosterers – we need you! For tomatoes, chillies and aubergines. The big seed order is arriving this week and I’m happy to drop round with everything you need to get some little green guys growing at home. This is so vital – not just so we have fabulous veggies to eat this year but we need things to sell at our spring fair and planned market stalls. To take the pressure off no one person gets all of one variety or one vegetable so if yours don’t make it then it’s okay. All you need is a sunny windowsill and a little bit of love. So don’t worry if you’ve killed plants before or never had a go -if you’re worried about the planting bit I can talk you through it or even drop off ready planted trays. Then you get the joys of green shoots inside as the weather warms up outside as well as volunteering for the garden from the comfort of your own home.

Thanks everyone and see you in the garden,

Lucy

Lots of exciting goings on – Get involved!!

February 8, 2013

Firstly…. drum roll….. WE’VE FINISHED THE TETRA SHACK!!

The Glorious Tetra Wall

And it is everything we could have hoped for and more.  It keeps the worst of the wind out of the shelter and looks fantastic (see attached) and there’s already talk about building another one.  Thank you to everyone who helped collect them and a special thanks to Julia and Nikki who went the extra mile (and anyone else involved in washing them who came to know how bad an old soya milk carton can actually smell).
Tropical conditions inside the
Secondly we have having our Volunteer Annual General Gathering, and so volunteers are invited.  It’ll be a chance to talk about the last year, and plans for the coming year and from this we hope to build a regular group of volunteers who meet monthly to make plans  and have a say about the running of the open volunteering days at the garden. Our current lottery funding will finish March 2014 and we’ve started making about how we’ll keep going and everyone’s thoughts and ideas are welcomed.
The plan is to have the meeting at the garden 3:00 20th February.  I realise that a lot of people will be at work at this time and won’t be able to make it and if I hear from enough people then perhaps we can make it later or on a Saturday, but Wednesdays are always our busiest day with the people who have come most often through the year.  Let me know if you’d like to come so I know how much cake and snacks to provide.
Also last year we have fabulous tomatoes and chillies thanks to the efforts of our fabulous plant fosterers.  All you need is a sunny windowsill and space to get a few plants started, this is especially important this year as we want lots of little green babies to sell as well as grow.  Don’t worry if you’re not green fingered, we’ll provide everything you need equipment wise as well as advice and support. Let me know if you’re interested – it’d be a huge help to the garden and if you live nearby but can’t make it down I might be able to drop stuff off at your house.
We have our first workshop tomorrow with lots of lovely people booked in to come and learn how to build raised beds Golden Hill Style and watch this space for more workshops in the pipeline.  And while I have your attention the date for the spring fair has been set for11th May.  Please pop it in your diary or on the calender and if you’ve any ideas of what you’d like to see at the fair then let me know.
And finally I’ve bowed to the pressures of the modern world and set up us a Facebook page.  So if you are someone who enjoys the distracting pleasures of Facebook then you can find us at at www.facebook.com/TheGoldenHillCommunityGarden.  Free feel to ‘like’ us, comment and post photos etc.

Happy Birthday to us!

January 29, 2013

Hello everyone,

One way or another it’s been a hectic January so that fact that it’s our FIRST BIRTHDAY this week nearly passed me by.  That’s right, we first officially opened our gates to volunteers on Feb 1st 2012.
 
This month’s Saturday open day is THIS SATURDAY 2ND FEBRUARY 10-2 and will be a work day and a celebration meaning (as if we needed an excuse) THERE WILL BE CAKE (and parsnips).
 
And what are we celebrating?  In the last year…
190 people have come together and volunteered in groups or on our Wednesdays, Mondays or Saturdays
90 children have pond dipped in our glorious new refurbished pond
13 community groups have benefited from the site
In one way or another we’ve had over 975 people through the gate and sharing the joy 
A total of 3483 views on the website 
In the worst gardening year in 30 years (some say) we managed a wonderful and varied harvest
We’ve weeded, barrowed, shivered, laughed, shared, shoveled, harvested and grown together on over 80 gardening sessions. And amazingly -considering the weather- I managed to get badly sunburned twice.
 
I’ve sat down and thought about favourite moments of the year.  They are usually the times I look round the garden and see everyone busying away on different tasks, working together, sharing skills and learning new things and I really feel that together we have created a fabulous place where everyone is welcome and valued. I also loved the wildy pink, tasty and exotic oca harvest, the building of ‘Bob’ the bean structure, finally getting the polytunnel plastic on, winning the awards and especially the slow coming together of the tetra shack wall (nearly finished!).  
If you’ve a happy memory of the year I’d LOVE to hear it.
 
Thank you to everyone who has supported the garden in any way, here’s to another fabulous year in which we will be trying out all sorts of exciting new ideas to make the project financially sustainable (I’ll save those for the next email!). 
 
In the coming weeks we’ll be welcoming the Bishop Rd Afterschool Club, students from King Weston Special School, adults with learning difficulties from Silvacare, the Young Carers, and toddlers from a local nursery, students from the local college, teenagers volunteering for their Duke of Edinburgh Award and lots groups more to come and get involved.  
 
And in the coming year we’ll be building, planting, watering, harvesting, celebrating, eating, weeding and basking in a golden summer even if it only lasts a fortnight again. 
 
And everyone is welcome as usual down this Wednesday when we will return to the usual opening time 10-4 and Saturday 10-2- especially if you bring a saw or an eager sawing arm as our timber order should have arrived and these new beds aren’t going to build themselves.
 
See you in the garden!
 

Lucy