Big Dig success on 22 April 2017

The Big Dig day arrived and our core volunteers wondered if other park users would join us in planting edibles in the herb bed.  The Big Dig is an annual event organised by Capital Growth with over 40 community spaces in London taking part:  http://www.capitalgrowth.org/bigdig/   

Poster for our event.

Our group met at the herb bed, part of Capital Growth community garden 797.  Within minutes a new volunteer arrived.

Before long more new volunteers joined us, including children aged between 3 and 5.We set up our table with sign-in sheet along with all the plants and seed packets.

Our table with pots and leaflets and sign-in sheet

Our main focus today was the herb bed, which had been weeded by Nature's Gym volunteers just over two weeks ago. Since then the bindweed contained in this plant bed has regrown so we had to be careful to pull out as much as we could.

We had a plant pot containing a lavender plant, another pot with sage cuttings, 20 mini hand-made paper pots with young broad bean plants, some potato tubers (Alouette variety) which had been chitted, a plant pot with evening primrose and Welsh poppy. The seed packets contained nigella, marigold, Mexican marigold, sunflower seeds and more.
The first task for Mike and Robert was to dig a trench for our 6 potato tubers and to plant 20 broad beans (variety Aquadulce Claudia).
We used some our own home-made compost in the trench and the bean holes. Robert dug the trench.

Potato variety Alouette 

Potatoes in trench on a bed of compost

Sandra raked soil over the potatoes.

Mike cleared an area for planting the broad beans and the photo below shows  the finished result:

                                                                                                 

Kareem planted the evening primrose and Welsh poppy (no photo though) before moving on to the fruit bed and weeding around the raspberry canes.

Our banner was unfurled on the ground and two of our younger helpers wanted to pose for a photo by standing on the corners.

Two young helpers posed for a photo on our banner

Christopher and his mum Emily (no photo, blame the photographer!) worked very hard digging up as much bindweed as they could. Christopher was very good at spotting the bindweed and its roots. They sowed a variety of different seeds including marigolds and Nigella. They made a number of journeys to the toilets by the cafe to fetch water in plastic bottles and water the area. Meanwhile another young helper arrived and he joined in the watering.

Two dads and two boys went to the mini wildflower meadow to sow packs of wild flower seeds and had fun watering them in. (Again no photos. Maybe one of the dads has some?)

After two hours with a mix of hard work and and social chat with other volunteers it was time to pack up. Look for the herb bed and all the things that were planted. We had a lovely morning and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.  I hope some of our young helpers will remember to bring watering cans or plastic bottles to water the plants they sowed or planted.

GARDENING WITH GLENDALE in October

Friends of Mayow Park will have a gardening session with some of the Glendale staff on Thursday 13th October 2016. Meet near the cafe from 10am to 1pm.
Stay for the whole session or for a little while.
We have some tools but if you have a trowel or spade for your own use, please bring them.
We don't have any gardening gloves so please bring if you have them.
We intend to tidy up the plant bed where the raspberries are.
We will thin the raspberries and prune them for the winter.
We will create more space in the middle of the area to allow the grass to be cut regularly.
The plum tree and the apple tree will remain and we will mulch around them.
The mini wildflower meadow will be cut for the winter.
Refreshments - biscuits and squash.
For more information contact <friendsofmayowpark@ymail.com>

Workday at the Triangle on 21st July 2016

Would it be too hot and humid to work in the Triangle garden? That was the question being asked the day before,after one of a series of very hot (over 30 degrees C) and humid days.

Would we have enough volunteers to make a significant impact on the overgrown plant beds?
The rainy weather in May and June, coupled with warmth, had seen a small amount of bindweed turn into a strangling mass of long thin strings winding round our herbs. The herbs had also grown and were falling across the woodchip path throughout the plant bed, hiding the path.

Herb bed looks more like a nature reserve

Hard to know where to begin!

As for the adjacent fruit bed, that too was overgrown. The raspberries were doing very well much to the joy of passers-by who grazed the fruit but the grass had grown so that it was impossible to see the stepping logs and the patch with primroses and blueberries was only visible if you knew it was there. Pulling away the long grass exposed this patch.

Grass removed to expose the blueberries and primroses

The woodland style wood chip bed that meanders behind the hedgerow and in front of the dawn redwood tree to the water fountain was bare and needed a deep layer of fresh wood chips, while the path edge logs were rolling away and needed to be bedded in.  The tree stump 'den' opposite the raspberry bed was shouting for a bit of a trim too.

Tree stump den opposite the raspberry bushes

It turned out to be a reasonable day, hot but not scorching,  with clouds and a light breeze. By 11am the Nature's Gym volunteers, and leaders Jess and Judith, had arrived. Before long the volunteers had done their warm-up exercises, tools were given out and work started. In total, and including Mayow Park volunteers, there were 13 people. 

Working hard at our tasks

Tasks were chosen and everyone got on with the hard work of making the beds look  cared for. We all worked so hard that the time flew but luckily someone realised that we had gone beyond the normal tea time/ lunch break.  Without further ado, hot water flasks came out of the van; tea-bags, coffee, milk and biscuits too. And everyone took a well-deserved breather.

Lunch break on the grass, in the shade of a tree, in front of the cafe

After lunch we all carried on with our tasks. And, as before, we lost track of time. The path by the dawn redwood tree looked better for a good layer of fresh wood chips laid along its length.

Wood chip path by the dawn redwood tree

It was almost time to stop. Two of the volunteers would not give up until they had finished laying wood chip mulch along the path through the herb bed.

The Nature's Gym volunteers were determined to complete the job

We cleared up all the green waste and piled it up ready for the Glendale grounds maintenance team to collect to take to a garden waste recycling centre.

When all was finished, Judith and Jess were finally able to pose for the camera knowing that a huge amount of clearing and tidying had been achieved and that the work of their volunteers was really valued by the Friends of Mayow Park.

It was time to look at the garden and note the cardoon plants, with their purple flowers just emerging atop the tall stem structures. Other park users were also admiring these grand architectural plants and noting the bumble bees flitting between the flowers. 

Cardoon flowers looking beautiful

There is still more work to do as the bindweed has also colonised parts we did not manage to clear. So a call to park users for another workday is on the horizon. 

Thank you to all the Nature's Gym folk who turned up and worked so hard to help.

BIG DIG in Mayow Park 16 April 2016

In total we had twelve adult volunteers and two toddlers taking part in our 2-hour session to tidy the Pavilion Triangle beds. The previous session had been over the Christmas holidays so now we wanted to focus on planting strawberries, first early potatoes as well as weeding, mulching the paths and thinning out some of the herbs  the herb bed.
Here is a photo taken by Lumen showing one of our youngest volunteers working alongside two adults.

Our new A board can be seen in the background by the Park notice board.
And the photo below taken by Carol shows the A board displaying our event poster poster prepared by Jon.

The following photos are taken by Carol and show some of the volunteers at work. Three people joined us who had never volunteered with us before. The park was very busy this morning and a number of people spoke to volunteers about our work.

 
                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                                                 
                                                   

What is missing at the moment is a photo showing the huge amount achieved. A brilliant session and many thanks to all those who joined us. It was fun.

Wildlife at our workday 16th April 2016

Friends of Mayow Park organised a gardening session at the Pavilion Triangle beds, not knowing who or what might join us. Two of us had just arrived and were standing by the holly tree when down flew a gold crest. The bird then hovered at the tree ( a bit like a humming bird) and few back into the conifers by our compost bins. Jon had seen the bird and its markings very clearly but was not quick enough to get a photo.
<https://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/g/goldcrest/>


Over the next two hours people made other discoveries: a centipede and a frog in particular. The following photos are from Carol Robinson (CR) and Lumen Silveira (LS)

(CR) what have we found?

                                                                       

(CR) looks like a frog

(LS) Frog taken to a place of safety

After the gold crest and the frog, would we something else? We found a centipede scuttling out the way  of people busy with weeding and planting. 

(AS) Grow Wild wild flower seed pack

(CR) sowing wild flower seeds in our mini meadow

                                                                   

(AS) wild flower mini meadow

More photos and a summary of our Big Dig will be in  the next blog. 

Big Dig event 16th April 2016

There's always something to do in the Triangle beds in Mayow Park and more so now that spring has arrived. The hedgerow on one side of the Triangle has blackthorn in blossom, as does the plum tree sheltered by the hedge. The daffodils planted in December have come up and are flowerinf.

Our next event at the Triangle will be a gardening session on Saturday 16th April as part of the Big Dig, a nationwide project aiming to get more people involved in community food growing

The Big Dig is a project of Sustain: the alliance for better food and farming. http://www.sustainweb.org/

Friends of Mayow Park are looking for volunteers to help us on the day, between 10am and midday. 

Come for a short while of help for the whole two-hour session. We have very few tools so if you can bring a trowel or a hoe plus your own gardening gloves, that would be a great help. 

session in March 2015

We plan to plant potatoes, sow wild flower seeds, weed, mulch and prune as well as planting new strawberry plants donated by Iris at Grow Mayow.

Grow Mayow will also be participating in the Big Dig.

If there are enough volunteers and enough time we can also do some weeding and mulching in the orchard.

the orchard with fruit trees planted in 2012 and 2016

If you can help, please let us know either by posting on our Facebook group or by email to friendsofmayowpark@ymail.com 

Nature's Gym volunteers work wonders

Weather plays an important part when there is gardening to do so it was a great relief that today, 17h September 2015, turned out dry, relatively warm and with some sun. Nature’s Gym volunteers and staff returned to Mayow Park and there must have been 15 people in total. 

As always there was more than plenty to do. Most of the work was based at the Triangle fruit and herb beds but a few volunteers worked at the orchard and bug hotel.

The orchard saw a team removing weeds round the base of the trees and adding a layer of mulch to suppress weeds and look after the tree roots. 

The bug hotel in the nearby woodland had more woody material added to the pallets to create a cosy environment for our park invertebrates ahead of the winter. Would it be cosy enough to attract a hedgehog or two?  

One of the volunteers did a grand job of cutting down the mini wild flower meadow with shears and we plan to sow more wild flowers in late autumn in the hope of a colourful display next spring and summer.

In the Triangle, the hedgerow round the fruit garden had become untidy with branches stretching over the woodchip path, hindering movement. This has now been pruned. The woodchip path has been raked in an effort to remove weeds growing in it. And the herb bed has had serious attention to remove bindweed which is gradually taking over available bare earth.

hedgerow pruned  to allow access to the path

Richard raking the woodchip path

Meet Gary and Gary

All this work generates plenty of garden waste. Glendale’s cleansing team were able to assist by taking it away.

Some of the team

As always these sessions are not only about serious gardening. 

There is time to relax and catch up on news during tea/ lunch break. 

And home time means packing tools back in the van.

Packing up time

The impact of all this work should be clearly visible to all. The Friends of Mayow Park are very grateful for the regular support we receive from Nature’s Gym volunteers.

This photo was taken the following day.