Garden Volunteers

We’ve been really pleased to see more friendly faces joining us to become one of our garden volunteers.  Our Thursday afternoon session is growing ever popular with our garden volunteers, and we also have garden volunteers that help out on an ad-hoc basis at various times during the week.

Food bank vegetable donations

Our first food bank delivery were turnips that had overwintered in the polytunnel.

Having invested in some heated propagation equipment we were able to get an early start to sowing our vegetable seed.  Growing on in our polytunnel, we had a successful harvest of beetroot and pak choi which were donated to the Wycombe Food Hub.

We also began developing the new vegetable field, which will grow: kale, beans, pumpkins, courgettes and chard.  All vegetables grown will be donated to Buckinghamshire food banks and community groups supporting people in need.

Children’s Memorial Garden

In the memorial garden we have re-purposed some old troughs to create wildlife ponds.  We hope this will add to the biodiversity in the garden.  We also added benches and water features to add to the tranquil ambience.

We’ve been grateful to receive a number of plant donations from the Wycombe Food Hub, our own Garden Volunteers and local residents.  These have been planted out in our borders throughout the memorial garden.

Orchard

We have continued with our planned renovation of the fruit trees. Our apple and pear trees were pruned during the dormant winter months.  We also planted an additional 14 new apple and pear trees.

Woodland trust tree donation

The Woodland Trust donates young trees to community groups around the country.  We were delighted that our application was successful and will receive over 400 saplings this November.  We will be planting these between the memorial garden and orchard to create a hedge bringing all year colour to both areas.  Extra Garden volunteers needed in November!

Events & local visits

In February we were welcomed to set up our stand at the Bucks Goat Centre during February half term.  We took along our free pebble painting activity and brought back lots of beautiful creations for our new border.

In March we joined the 2^nd Princes Risborough Girl Guide group for some pebble painting and willow weaving.  The Girl Guides did a fantastic job with their creations.

The Longwick village fete was held in May, and again we saw some lovely pebble painting designs.  Some of our craft volunteers have been making cute crocheted vegetables for us to sell. The potatoes and carrots went down well and raised some extra funds for our charity.