Community Garden Open Day! Saturday 23rd March

We are really excited by how the community garden is taking shape, and are keen to show it off to the community so that everyone can see the progress we have made! We want to share our vision for how community gardening can really take off in Farncombe as we enter the beginning of the gardening year. And so, we are celebrating this by holding an OPEN DAY of Saturday, 23rd March from 10.30-12.30. Do come and join us for all or part of the morning if you can!

If you are able to join us, you will certainly want to take a circuit of our wonderful, accessible, wheelchair-friendly path. This takes you past the raised beds of our fruit and vegetable area, including the proposed site for the beautiful greenhouse that was recently donated to us. It continues down to our newly erected polytunnel before turning in a long curve through our orchard area, where the heritage fruit trees are beginning to establish themselves after they were planted last year. The next stop is to loop past our wildlife pond (take care here, the water is deep!) and the beautiful spreading oak tree where we intend to create an outdoor classroom. Turning once again, the path then leads to our wildlife-friendly dead hedge (not all of which is dead, some of the willow posts have taken root!) where the route leads you back towards the entrance, passing the circular firepit area, and a raised grassy mound where you can get a birds-eye view of the garden. Back near the entrance you can see the layout for our planned sensory garden, which is where the first flower beds will be laid this spring.

We are grateful to David Hughes, a local professional photographer, who kindly took some wonderful aerial photos of the garden and we love how the paths give such a cheery thumbs-up when viewed from above!

As well as taking a look around, we will have hot and cold refreshments to enjoy and the opportunity to do some gardening, as well as nature-based activities. Children are very welcome as long as they bring a responsible adult with them! At 11.30 the mayor will be planting a tree to celebrate the occasion. The growing year ahead is going to be exciting - we now have running water on the site, which makes everything so much easier, and the polytunnel has been erected in perfect time for the start of the growing season. As well as providing shelter when it rains, it also means we can sow seeds and grow on seedlings ready for planting out – which means there will be a range of ‘gentler’ gardening tasks available for those who aren’t up to digging up brambles!

We really hope to see you on the 23rd, but if you are not able to come on that day do join us any Saturday between 10-12 or Wednesday between 1-3pm, just to take a look around, or to get your hands in the soil and join in. As more people get involved in the garden and we have more volunteers, we hope to expand to have more open sessions in the future so please let us know if you would like to be part of this.