Looking after the plants in the Triangle beds

 Our volunteers had taken our eyes off the rapidly growing 'weeds' in the Triangle  herb and fruit bush beds opposite the cafe. This is the  planted space that visitors see as they walk past the cafe and into the park. We can do better. Only one regular  and another occasional volunteer have done much in a few months, clearing the long grass from the winding path through the herb bed. Oh dear! 

The rain really helped everything grow rapidly.

We are now playing 'catch-up' by having extra informal gardening sessions.  

 On  25th May 2021 three volunteers  got down on their knees busy weeding at the Triangle space. They pulled up some long grass under and around the raspberries  and some minor pruning of the raspberry canes so the berries can be seen more easily. As we were still following Lewisham's Covid distancing rules, three was a good number and we brought our own tools.

There were other informal sessions whenever individuals could turn up. As far as possible, plants and twigs were piled beside the hedgerow to make a 'dead hedge' of sorts.

We are now managing the plants better. 9th September and three volunteers gathered to prune the plum (which should have happened in August!), prune back the raspberry canes that had fruited this year and also keep the canes that are still fruiting as the weather is so mild. 

Another hastily arranged session on 15th September had the plum and apple tree in focus. The long grass was raked away and the trees were given a thick layer of partly rotted woodchip mulch. We were careful to make sure to leave a circular space between the tree trunks and the woodchips.

Mulching helps the fruit trees

Mulching will help the trees. Why? 

1. Mulching reduces evaporation from the soil around the trees in dry weather, keeping the roots moist.

2. Rain falling onto the mulch filters slowly through to the roots so they don't become too wet.

3. Mulch can help prevent weeds taking over the area round the tree. Weeds can compete with the tree roots for nutrients

4.Wood chips around trees can support  mycorrhizal fungi. These  fungi  are helpful to the tree roots

5. When wood chips have rotted down they are good for improving the soil.

Plenty of good reasons then? The orchard trees get the same care and attention.

The perks of volunteering by Pippa Moss

 What I did the other day wasn't in itself that exciting, I was ultimately just pulling up weeds.

But I came home with a real glow after those 2 hours.  

I'll tell you the reasons.

Firstly it is very tangible when there's some lovely fruit bushes being swamped by nettles, long grass and 'sticky buds' (also known as ‘goosegrass’). You literally feel like you are freeing them ready to provide more berries later than might otherwise have been the case.

Volunteers captured on camera

Also you get to chat with other volunteers (just 2 others at the moment while we still have to play safe 2m apart).. and pick up good tips. One tip from Alona being that our large piles of 'waste' can be used to make a little natural fence along behind the compost bins, where the old weeds will dry out and provide some goodness back into the ground.

waste greenery piled under hedge

Plus it was great to work with Bella, co-chair of Friends of Home Park as we hadn't managed to meet in person despite numerous online chats.

Finally and fabulously was the number of people who stopped as they passed to say hello. Neighbours, Pat from the Sydenham Society, Chrissie from the library, dog walker friends, Hakan a park regular who also looks after the SE26 community Facebook group, Iris from Grow Mayow, parents wanting to learn about the plants and herbs, a wave to Glendale driving past in a van…

It was Mayow at its best to be honest and while there's still some work to do around the Triangle Garden near the cafe, it was a fabulous sociable start.

Next week is #VolunteersWeek. A time to celebrate all you and others do to volunteer in our community. Share on our social media what you get up to, especially to keep our green spaces green. Thank you.

Clearing the fruit area at the Triangle beds by Pippa

It seems the combination of weather events this year (excess rain followed by warm and dry weather) meant our currant and berry bushes were being heavily invaded by long grass, nettles, 'sticky buds' (also known as cleavers, Latin name Galium aparine) and the odd bramble and in fact when we started this clearing project the fruit bushes were really very hidden. 

As people stopped to say hello we explained what they were and many hadn't realised. Anyway it's pretty rewarding pulling up all that stuff (bar nettles, hate those, I always get stung) and gives you a feeling you are 'freeing' the good stuff. 

The currents and raspberries are already fruiting in small form on the plants so there should be a good crop for people to pick a few as they go past. 

The plum and apple trees look better too. The plum fruits suffer from 'pocket plum' and no longer form proper fruits. 

We cleared loads of 'weeds' the first session. A second session was needed to finish that job - by now I was crawling pretty much inside the fruit bushes as you get slightly obsessed with getting every last strand of grass out.

Alona then wheelbarrowed the good-quality compost we'd created in our bin in the park, and we started spreading it around the cleared beds. It looks really great now.

During these sessions I was very distracted by The Triangle looking stunning with Forget-me-nots (Myosotis) but really taken over by the 'sticky buds' so I couldn't resist clearing some of those out.  There's bindweed in there too though that's a big job for next time.

It was great to be back having a 'presence' in the park (Alona and I working at 2m apart was easy). People do always stop to ask questions and we can remind them about FOMP.

We even had our first FOMP Zoom meeting this week so the Friends certainly are still being active despite many of our planned activities having to be cancelled.  At least we got our new benches (from the Greening Fund) put in just before lockdown. Just a reminder that we always are looking for more people to join the small but active FOMP committee!

Gardening in Triangle bed 3rd Feb 2020

Four people came to tidy up the Triangle herb bed on 3rd February. The tall, dead flower stalks from the lemon balm plants were removed and piles of couch grass raked up.
The oregano plants were also dead-headed
 All dead plant materials was taken homeward destined for domestic  gardening waste recycling bins.
The bed is now almost ready to take new seeds and plants after we add compost.

Gardening activities by FOMP volunteers

There are three FOMP volunteers who regularly arrange to do some gardening work in specific spaces  within Mayow Park which we are responsible for. This was agreed  with Lewisham Council and Glendale  some years ago but many people who have recently moved into the locality may not be aware of this.

Here is a summary

HERB BED in front of the cafe. It grows a range of herbs, mostly mints but also plenty of oregano which butterflies love, as we saw back in July. It is allowed to grow a little untidily. People are able to collect leaves of rosemary, oregano, mints and other herbs for their own use. Unfortunately that bed also has bindweed which we struggle to keep under control. When we pull it up, it goes into one of the park litter bins rather than our compost bins. This is because our 'dalek' style compost bins do not heat up to a sufficient temperature to destroy the bindweed.
Information on our compost area will follow in another blog.

SOFT FRUIT BED: Just to the west of the herb bed is the bed with raspberries, blackcurrants, red currants and white currants. The fruit is there for passers-by to pick and for children to taste fresh. The two fruit trees in that space are a Victoria Plum which has not produced proper plums for several years. In the past few years it has developed 'Pocket Plum', caused by a fungus. This prevents the development of the stone and causes distorted fruits to appear. There is nothing we can do, but the tree is still healthy and a worthy addition to the space. Near to that is a dwarfing Jonagold apple tree which produced a few apples this year and which were enjoyed by people in the park. Round two sides of the fruit bed is a hedgerow, planted for wildlife.

There are also plants growing beside the balustrade overlooking the bowls green.

MINI WILD FLOWER BED AND STEPPING LOGS
Along the path to the south of the soft fruit bed is a very small wild flower meadow. This year more colourful flowers came up. Next year, do visit and see how many wild flower varieties you can find.

ROCKERY: Near the drinking water fountain that Friends of Mayow Park funded is the revived rockery, which we rebuilt with help from Glendale. It was the wish of the previous Chair of FOMP, Hilary Jarrett,  that the rockery would look be revived. Sadly Hilary died before her wish came true. I'm sure she would be very happy.

MINI NATURE TRAIL: Along the path towards the tennis courts and just past the end of the bowls green to the left, we have created a mini nature trail and invertebrate 'hotel'. Volunteers from Nature's Gym helped to rebuilt the the pallets of the minibeast hotel and to lay logs along the path. During the summer holidays (and presumably with approval of their parents) children removed the path edge logs to build 'dens' in various locations in the park. We hope that we can find enough logs to reinstate the path and that parents will encourage children to respect the work of volunteers.

ORCHARD: We have 17 fruit trees and one bush. A detailed account of the orchard will be prepared ahead of our Apple Day, coming up in early October.

We welcome volunteers to help us with the rockery and the gardening. No experience is necessary as we will show you what to do. Twice a year there is an orchard workshop, led by an experienced orchard volunteer.

GARDENING IN THE TRIANGLE

By Pippa.
The triangle herb bed needs caring for as it has a prime spot near the cafe entrance to the park and if you are sat having a coffee outside the cafe you certainly will be looking at it and now hopefully admiring it. Full of Forget-me-nots (Myosotis) it is looking rather colourful now.

Look out for another attractive flower at the moment, common self-heal (Prunella vulgaris). Though its soft pink/ purple colour is muted compared to Forget-me-not, it plays an important role in attracting pollinator insects. Watch carefully and see bees flying to the flowers.

The dead brown stalks are gone and the herbs will be on their way up shortly. The rosemary is doing well and I saw the cafe staff taking snips today which is great - fresh herbs for their lovely food menu. This work is down to a few FOMP members but anyone can join our 'gardening club'.

It's very rewarding to transform an area like this in a short time.

Gardening session today

No photos as I forgot to take any. We worked on the fruit bed at the Triangle, pulling up couch grass that was threatening to strangle the currant bushes. It became clear rather quickly that we have neglected this bed, having done very little for a year. Some raspberry canes encroached on the space currently with currants, so they had to be removed. We found stinging nettles, good for wildlife but a menace in a space where people are encouraged to enter and pick fruit, so they had to be removed. We produced a large amount of organic garden waste and we could see what had been cleared, but we will need at least two more morning sessions to finish what we started.
A robin spent some time watching our activities with interest before flying off to find more food.

Summer pruning orchard workday June2017

We had a very productive Orchard Summer Pruning and tree care session on 24th June with a total of 12 adults and 5 children. Good weather obviously plays an important part in determining how many people are able to take part, so that was a good start. We put up our gazebo to signpost our presence and placed our sign board nearby so that passers-by would recognise who we were and what we were doing.

As usual on these occasions we went through the risk assessment, safe handling of tools and list of tasks for today.

First up was to check trees for pests and diseases. We found some ant and aphid activity on two trees, most noticeable on the Cox's Orange Pippin; some leaves on some trees had evidence of leaf miner but nothing to worry about. Some leaves on the pear trees are starting to show signs of rust but this should not cause serious damage. Many of the apple trees are bearing heavy loads of fruit so we thinned out clusters to prevent disease and encourage the fruits to grow bigger.

Before pruning started in earnest we ran through the reminder of what to look for with the branches:
DEAD, DAMAGED OR DISEASED
CROSSING OR CONGESTED (i.e. overcrowded)

The plum and cherry trees can only be pruned in summer as winter pruning risks developing Silver Leaf, a fungal disease that could destroy a tree. It is probably better to summer prune in July and August but today was our workday for this task.
Before we could prune, some of the tree guards needed to be reduced in height. They have helped to protect the trees pretty well, despite two guards having been damaged during the past few months.

Jonathan inspects the Quince before cutting the height of the tree guard

Sandra with Lane's Prince Albert apple

Robert & Jon reduce the height of the guard round the cherry

Jon among the plums

While the pruning was going on, Sue with her able assistant Christopher (aged 4) were cutting down the comfrey plants, putting them into the wheelbarrow, then chopping them up into small pieces to put round the trees as mulch.

Christopher chops up comfrey leaves to use as mulch

Two other able-bodied young helpers were Thomas and Daniel, watched over by Carol while Jonathan cut down the guards around the quince.

Daniel and Thomas supervise the work

We also had two babies (under 12 months old) supervising us and other adults not in these photos.
Half-way through our work Lewisham's Mayor, Steve Bullock, came to officially open the newly refurbished tennis courts. They have been open for a few weeks already  and have been welcomed by most  of our enthusiastic tennis players.

Newly refurbished tennis courts - May 2017

 We were invited to join in to see the cutting of the ribbon  and share in the delicious strawberries and cream cake.These photos of the Mayor and the cake were taken by Carol Robinson.

And here are photos from the official photographer, including
- a group photo of the Mayor, tennis players, young children and the orchard volunteers
- the tennis courts
- the amazing cake

Three hours of orchard work by the team of volunteers passed by very quickly and the opportunity for a group photo was lost as people went home. In addition to pruning, guard height reduction and comfrey mulching, we also managed to weed round the trees and cut the grass round them.

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.

NATURE’S GYM3 – THE HERB BED

The Friends of Mayow Park look after a plant bed of mainly herbs in front of the cafe in a space that once contained neglected and sad-looking roses. Look for the sign saying Capital Growth Community Garden 797 to see the area. It is just one edible garden of many across London that Capital Growth support. See http://www.capitalgrowth.org/ 
Grow Mayow behind the cafe is another Capital Growth site. 

 Now the former rose bed grows herbs with park users  invited to pick some leaves to smell, taste and take home to use.

On 6^th April Nature's Gym volunteers worked hard to remove 'weeds' growing in this space; in other words plants that are not meant to grow there. 

Digging up willow herb plants

There were large quantities of willowherb plants to remove, despite a major cull last autumn. How the willowherb got there in the first place is something of a mystery as it is not widespread within the park.

Another invasive plant in the bed is bindweed. Any piece of broken root can re-grow and the roots are rather brittle, breaking easily. This growing area received a large amount of fresh soil when we started the herb bed and there is a suspicion that the bindweed came in the soil. We don’t put any plants from this bed into our compost bins as the bins use ‘cold composting’ so persistent weeds are not destroyed.

Clumps of blue Forget-me-Not in flower

There were also plenty of other wild plants – mainly wood avens, cleavers and grasses. All of these are attractive but compete for space with other plants that have been intentionally planted such as strawberries, chives, mint, lemon balm, oregano,  rosemary and more. We decided the Forget-me-Nots could stay as they are non-competitive plants with shallow roots and beautiful pale-blue flowers. They will be removed when they have finished flowering. 

Thank you Nature's Gym volunteers for the hard work you put in to clear the ground ready for new planting. 

Our plan is to plant edibles at our Big Dig event on 22nd April. Potatoes and broad beans, lavender and sage are ready to go into the ground. We have some packs of wild flower mixes to sow as well. New volunteers are welcome to come and help. Why not join us? 

Upcoming events March-April 2017

We have a number of activities organised by Friends of Mayow Park.
Friday 31st March is our popular bat walk: meet at 7.30pm by the Mayow Park cafe entrance - opposite Burghill Road.
Thursday 6th April: Nature's Gym session with a focus on wildlife and conservation. Meet near the cafe.
Saturday 22nd April: The Big Dig. We will plant in the Triangle herb bed.
Tuesday 25th April: Friends of Mayow Park quarterly general meeting at Dacres Wood Field Centre 7pm

Let us know if you can join us for any of these events.

Gardening with Glendale 13 Oct 2016

As always when working out of doors, we hope for dry weather. The forecast though was a bit uncertain and there had been rain earlier in the morning. How lucky we were that by 10a.m the rain had passed  and we were soon working hard.
This session saw Glendale managers and Friends of Mayow Park working to tidy up the fruit bed  and the mini wildflower area in the Triangle.
The first task was to remove the stepping logs in the fruit bed. Many logs had been covered by couch grass and those that were still visible were rotting and slippery. In a very short time they had all been moved to create an invertebrate habitat in a corner by the hedgerow. A robin came to join us with the promise of a feast and a frog or two hopped away as we disturbed their hiding place.  Chris wheeled barrow-loads of woodchip to fill the small craters where the logs had been.

new log pile for invertebrates

camouflaged frog

holes to fill in 

The sitting logs near the holly tree and hedgerow needed some remedial work. Some logs had rotted. This was not a problem and in no time the Glendale team had it sorted.

Let's start with this log

warm work - time to remove jackets

The wild flower meadow was taken on by Sandra who cut down all plant matter from the site. Just as well she is not too squeamish as there were slugs and a frog hidden in  the vegetation.

Wild flower meadow cut

canes that were dug up

raspberry patch

Sue and Dave worked on the raspberry patch, pruning most of the canes and digging up some to allow more light in.

Here are some more photos showing the sitting logs, the team and the large pile of garden waste that was generated. All the garden waste will be taken to a depot for shredding and turning into compost.

Mike was skillfully pruning the wild rose bushes at the apex of the Triangle, at the herb bed closest to the cafe, and very visible to people entering the park. The roses are now full of delicious-looking rose hips for the wild animals  so care was needed not to lop them all off. Mike also pruned the hedgerow along one side of the fruit bed and it looks much better now. 

some of the team

the team again

story circle

job done

large pile of gardening waste

another pile of gardening waste

It was great to have the Glendale team  to help us as the fruit bed had become rather overgrown. While the team were in the park they also chopped some brambles in the bushes as these were beginning to spread onto the path and they also tidied up the tree pits around the row silver birch trees in front of the bowls cabins. The Friends of Mayow Park will organise another volunteer workday next month.