We had been experiencing the driest and hottest summer for a long time, and it has been a challenge to keep our plants alive and to find solutions for new ways to collect water for our guttering system-it's not easy when there's no rainfall for months! Despite all of the challenges, we managed to have a thriving garden (with the exception of some casualties, unsurprisingly).
All our activities went ahead, community groups and our family gardening club have been busy with summer tasks, we had some improvements, new furniture, special visits and a garden trail, as well as some good opportunities to promote our Trust and encourage local people to help wildlife.
Here's a more detailed description of our summer season and our plans for the rest of the year.
July
July has been a very busy month with many activities and some really great highlights from the community garden.
Community group visits:
Cando Care had a nice visit, we had a walk around Skew bridge, which was enjoyed by all, we did a butterfly count and talked about the beavers and other wildlife at the NW.
Growild Outreach clients helped to plant some sensory plants in the wishing well planter that we kindly received from the carpentry workshop from Five Wells Prison in Wellingborough. This workshop is part of their rehabilitation programme for inmates. I had the chance to visit Five Wells and have seen the incredible workshops they run to give new skills to people. It was great to have community groups involved in the setting up of this planter. Growild Outreach also created some solitary bee houses, that are now in the orchard area, and some of them have already been used by leafcutter bees! They also had an exciting session at the end of the month, as we had a visit from the firefighters from Rushden Fire Station. The fire safety talk was very engaging, and the clients had a lots of questions, which is really good. The highlight of course was the fire engine, we even got to use the thermal cameras and the blue lights. While we were waiting for the firefighters to arrive(as they had an emergency and came to see us later than scheduled) the group planted some succulents to the drought garden-it looks very nice with the new additions. We talked about climate change, global warming and about ways we can adjust our gardens with more heat tolerant plants.
Family Eco Club: Our July session was a special one, we had a visit from the firefighters from Irthlingborough Fire Station, and the families had fun with using the fire hose, sitting in the fire engine, and learning about fire safety.
Garden Trail: The garden trail went live at the beginning of July, visitors could collect the sheets from customer services or the Visitor Centre, and find the clues in the garden. The prize was a badge with our new nature themed designs, they were a big hit with the children! The wooden signs were created by volunteers and community groups, and were installed by our community garden volunteer, Kyle and his sons, who come to the eco club regularly.
Kyle also installed guttering for our second water butt, and was helping to relocate the mini pond, and connect it to guttering. Previously the pond was in a very sunny spot, so it dried out all the time because of the dry and very hot weather we have been experiencing.
Rushden Rangers in the community garden: Like in previous years, we had a day of Rushden Rangers fun in the community garden- the hourly sessions run from 10am to 3pm. The kids learnt about wildlife gardening, created compostable flower pots and sown some herbs to take home. They also created some natural art with stones and gravel from the garden. All sessions were fully booked and the families enjoyed learning about wildlife as well as taking part in the interactive actions, lead by Anna, from Bakehouse Productions.
Fundraising: Our regular gardening club member, Oliver did some amazing fundraising for the Wildlife Trust BCN, he created some 30 Days wild bookmarks and keyrings with his mum, and sold them at his school fete, and at his estate where he lives, and he raised an amazing £132.60 for the trust. He will be featured on our website, and on social media at some point, and his fundraising efforts are included in the Watch newsletter too.
Donations: We have now received both benches for the community garden. These were generously donated by the Swivel club. They will be installed in the next few weeks, so they can be enjoyed by everyone that visits the garden. They are also planning to put some plaques on the benches, with their name and logo.
DofE: We have some DofE students helping out in the garden and doing litter picking around Skew bridge, they stayed for the summer holidays. New students are timetabled to start in September, so this is working out nicely for everyone.
Donations to Encompass: We harvested vegetables for the local charity, we had giant courgettes, onions, lettuce, runner beans.. Soon the potatoes will be ready, and the tomatoes are nearly there too. All the groups are very excited about making pizza, so they have been nearly hypnotising the tomatoes to ripen quicker. 😊
August
Family Eco Gardening Club: we have made butterfly houses and learnt about butterflies and pollinators. The children also completed the garden trail and checked out our fruits and vegetables .
Improvements in the garden: The picnic table and benches have been installed, thanks to our community garden volunteer, Kyle. He also helped to relocate the mini pond, and connected it to the guttering, and created a lid for the water butt, featuring a cute caterpillar.
Garden Open Day: We had our summer open day on a very hot day, and some brave families joined us for creating a mini meadow in a compostable pot with the choice of wildflower seeds or herbs to sow. We also decorated seed markers, and other easy crafts were available to choose from. It was lovely to meet some visitors who were keen to pop in and talk about the project and learn more about the community garden and our work there. Our work experience students did a great job with helping out in the afternoon, they even decorated a mini bug hotel for the garden.
Community groups: Cando Care visited us and had a busy session creating mini terrariums. We talked about mini eco systems, and hopefully everyone can see how they work with their own lovely mini-jar creations.
Plans for the autumn: It might be the end of the summer holidays, but we are already excited about our next plans for September and for October half term. Our community groups will be attending a beaver guided tour, to see what is going on on the other side of the fence- this is the fence between the community garden and Delta Pit. It's so close, and the clients and service users often wonder what the beavers are doing when we have events-mainly sleeping through the day, I would say, but it would be interesting to see some evidence of their nocturnal activities. The gardening club will be having the long awaited pizza making session in September, and in October we will engage with the visiting families again in some scary-face pizza making and cooking sessions using up the vegetables and fruits we will harvest at the end of the season. Our half-term bookable activity will be a pumpkin carving session, and as the pumpkin pancakes were so popular last year, we are planning to make them again during the event too.
The Higham Beavers Group will visit the garden in mid-September to help with some tasks, litter picking, completing the garden trail, and getting their gardening awards.
Later in the year we are planning to learn about hedgehogs and decorate hedgehog bowls in November, and have the ever popular wreath making workshops and natural Christmas decoration making workshops, and of course we will take action to make sure that the birds have enough food to provide energy for winter.
The Family Eco Gardening Club is running in the winter months too, so here's to a busy rest of the year! Find all our upcoming events and book here.
