Hello one and all and welcome to the final blog of summer (well meteorologically speaking at least!) 2015. Apologies for the lack of photos this month I’m having a few technical issues uploading them! As with the previous blogs from the summer we have been run off our feet with the usual tasks of weeding and watering to keep the site ticking over so not to bore you again with the details lets fill you in on what else we have been up to…
As you probably all know the school holidays are now over but we would like to thanks everyone old and young who came and explored the site, bought some trees/plants or just run away scared from the gate! A huge thank you from all of us for choosing to spend your time with us and we hope you enjoyed your visit and hope you come back again soon. It was our first summer in our more public friendly layout and we are ever evolving so you will hopefully see changes next time! We are also a community space so we would welcome input/suggestions into what you want to see or how you could use the space including events or courses you would like us to put on in the future.
Talking of events…we hosting our first one in partnership with the RHS (Royal Horticulture Society) which turned out to be a huge success despite the rather sodden day it turned into! The event was a Family Growing Day with Merryn from RHS where kids could make their own pizza topping pots using herbs, learn how to take cuttings, giving out free seeds, bug hunting and making willow stars. Thank you to everyone who braved the rain, we hope this will be the first of many such family days so look out for future announcements regarding these.
As the summer is drawing to a close we realised it’s high time we started going out on our annual seed collecting hunts to see what we can find and hopefully then grow. At the moment its mainly fruit/berries with the odd bit of wildflower seeds, but we shall be searching more nut type seeds. A group of volunteers first toured round our home of Grimsbury Farm in search of wild and bird cherries then a larger group took a walk along the nearby Cock Road Ridge to see what could be found. So far we have focused on mainly more edible fruits but as you can imagine amongst a group armed with books and internet connections there was many debates about the exact identification of fruits, especially amongst the Prunus genus! If you would like to learn more about the process then why not come along and volunteer where you can come on one of our trips and be there through ever stage of the process.
Finally, a mention for our Grow Wild project which has been very successful this summer with the guys who come along taking away carrier bags full of fresh produce they have grown from seed ever week. There has even been a surplus and for a small donation you can take the produce home with you too, although be quick as the volunteers have their eyes on the food too! All the guys involved have thoroughly enjoyed the process and are now planning what to grow over the winter period in the polytunnel and outside.
Parish notices:-
We are now running a Forest School project for toddlers to pre-schoolers called Little Acorns ever Wednesday. The group is to provide outdoor stimulated learning in the natural world safely. For more info please click here.
At the beginning of October, Saturday 3rd to be exact, we will be hosting our annual open day for Big Green Weekend. It is also part of the Discover South Gloucestershire Festival so you can expect lots of family friendly events and many of our partner organisations will be there, including launching our involvement in the One Tree Per Child scheme. Keep your eyes peeled on our Facebook and Twitter pages for announcements of events.
Don’t forget you can follow and like us on Facebook and Twitter to get more up to date news and plenty more pictures.
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