Recycle for County Durham (Durham County Council) are running their sunflower and pumpkin growing competition again this year!
County Durham Schools and community groups can get involved over the summer in growing the tallest sunflower or the largest pumpkin, for a chance to win a £100 voucher for gardening equipment for the school or group. To enter the competition please email [email protected] with your school/group and contact name and how many people will be involved by Saturday 12 May and we’ll send you free seeds and more competition information. The competition will be judged in October 2018. Happy sowing!
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Gardener's social, soaking up the 22 degrees weather. Glorious! Neighbours meeting each other and making friends.
Last Tuesday I had the pleasure of attending an event arranged by Merryoaks WI on 'Edible flowers and herbal teas', which was presented by Dianne Brown of Polemonium Plantery. The presentation centred on growing a range of plants which can be used fresh or dried and stored to provide organic teas and fresh salads.
The highlight for me was sampling the different varieties of mint. Who knew there is a chocolate peppermint plant that tastes and smells of mint chocolate, two fruity flavoured mints called 'Jessica's Sweet Pear,' and Strawberry Mint and lastly Vietnamese fish mint! If you are interested in meeting Dianne, you will have an opportunity at the Neville's Cross Ecofest! Ecofest 10th June 2018, St John's Church, Crossgate Peth Neville's Cross Merryoaks WI - Meetings take place every second Tuesday of the month at 7pm. It costs £3 per session if you are not a member. Polemonium Plantery Many congratulations to Susan and Glen Walker from the North East Humanists who organised a delightful plant sale in aid of the charity Equal Arts in the heart of Neville's Cross. There were a selection of delicious home made cakes and hot drinks.
The Walkers have a wonderful garden including a wildlife pond and a chicken coop. Also of interest was the living/sustainable drive-way which featured spring bulbs and a lawn that was supported by gropla. Susan was delighted to announce "thanks everyone for making this a succesful event we raised £178.60 for Equal Arts". Thanks to the Walkers for inviting the community to their lovely home and for organising such a lovely event. https://www.northeast-humanists.org.uk https://www.equalarts.org.uk Our first Gardener's breakfast meeting at the Duke of Wellington Pub, as a great success, we had a great turn out and it was wonderful that people from all different sections of our community attended and contributed their thoughts and experiences.
We discussed what we'd like to achieve as a group. Themes included:- Help with digging due to physical impairment Benefitting wildlife What will be available for children Meeting neighbours and becoming friends Fundraising opportunities Community gardens Bring our neighbourhood closer Planting pollinator plants Advice exchange Permaculture Growing veggies to eat Social trips to each others gardens Improving the appearance of Neville's Cross Flowering plants At the end of the meeting we asked people to write on a poster with their ideas on "What I Want From A Community Garden..." - Wildlife & pond - To be self-sustained (food-wise) - To learn new things & meet new people - Tasty organic vegetables - Picnic area - Growing vegetables & herbs - Learning to compost - Knowledge - What to grow / when to grow - What works in our locale - Plant swaps - Sustainability ideas (low water / reduced use of plastic) - Bees - Plant swap & herb garden - Sensory garden - Japanese garden - Working with nature - Lots of signatures for support on letter / petition We had a stall at the Neville's Cross Easter Egg hunt last weekend, I hope that those of you who attended enjoyed the activity of planting a sunflower seed.
Please do keep us updated with the height of your sunflower seeds! To view more pictures of the egg hunt please visit our webpage https://nxeasteregghunt.weebly.com/gallery.html In a desperate attempt to get grab your interest and make you read on... I'll leave the bit about the idea of the Harry Potter themed garden/trail towards the end of the update so you have to read this post about a seemingly uninteresting subject.
When it comes to resident associations, Neville's Cross is quite different because the people who are involved in them are quite friendly and genuine with their intentions. They are fantastic people giving up their spare time to improve our surroundings for the benefit of our community. I had the great pleasure of meeting Michael Mason who volunteers for Sheraton Park Resident's Association and what a very pleasent and charming man he was! Michael showed me the pathways that run behind Sheraton Park and towards Observatory hill, a truly beautiful walk indeed! I am very keen to work with Mike to increase the local people's awareness of the pathways and hopefully create a bit of interest. My initial thoughts was to created an enchanted pathway with fairies hidden with the tree and beautiful knitted characters (I have created a knitting group called Neville's Cross Knit Club and we can be found on Facebook, who hopefully will be contributing their creations towards the community projects on-going). Now, I am planning very far ahead but Halloween would be a great time to unveil a Harry Potter themed trail. If you would like to get involved and help with these projects do get in touch! Especially of you have access to owls, that would be pretty awesome to have an owl display just before Halloween. Today neighbours Mark Ruddell, Jan Hutchinson (both from Transition Durham) and myself knocked on people's doors throughout Redhills Lane and surrounding streets to introduce ourselves and promote our idea of a community garden on Redhills Lane. The feedback we recieved was overwhelmingly positive!! We found that there was a mix of elderly people. families and people who have relocated from outside of the North East and outside of the country too! What was striking was that pople who currently do not have an active interest in gardening would still very much like to benefit from being near an attractive garden, especially if they can pick fresh herbs, fruit and vegetables. There was a great interest from parents who stated that having their children be involved and learn about gardening, wildlife and healthy eating. A lovely surprise was to hear that a couple who now have a family and lived nearby had originally met at the site of our proposed community garden (thye are still together after 15 years and now have three children!). It was wonderful to hear people's stories , perhaps we should create a romantic monument for them (ok, ok, perhaps a nice rose bush instead might be more likely on a shoe string budget!) A Neville's Cross based group called the North East Humanist's are holding a fundraising plant sale.
Neville's Cross plant swap member Susan Walker writes, 'We are hosting be a plant sale to raise funds for our charity of the year, Equal Arts and to share our surplus or unwanted plants. If you have some spare plants, or just ones you are tired of bring them along and donate them, if you would like some cheap plants come along and see what’s available, or just come along for a natter and some cake'. I don't know about you. but ...where you find cake... you'll find me for sure!! Hope that you can attend also! Time: 14:00 - 16:00 Date: April 8th Location: 86 Hastings Avenue, DH1 3QQ For more information please click on the links: The Equal Arts webpage :- https://www.equalarts.org.uk The North East Humanists:- https://www.northeast-humanists.org.uk Message from group member Michael Scorer:
May Street Allotments Durham City Allotment Details:- I have seven allotments, at May Street in Durham City, which are available to rent. May Street Allotments now feature on the Durham Local Food Network(DLFN):- http://www.durhamlocalfood.org.uk/?q=node/810 The DLFN Map shows the location accurately:- http://www.durhamlocalfood.org.uk/?q=map/node Street Map also shows the location accurately:- http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf… The simplest way to access May Street Allotments is to go down the backlane adjacent to No32 May Street and through the door with a silver bolt directly ahead. Recently this door has been padlocked, but it is possible to see the allotments by looking over the fence some way down the back lane. Email:- [email protected] |
AuthorMandeep Smith, novice gardener! Archives
July 2018
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