It was lovely to see Yvonne Fuchs at Stream Walk on Saturday morning. Yvonne, along with her husband John Henry, were involved from the very beginning of the community garden and maintained a strong involvement over the years. Sadly John Henry passed away on 4th May. Yvonne bought a beautiful bouquet of flowers grown in the gardens as a special tribute to her husband knowing how much he would have loved them. Our thoughts are with you, Yvonne.
Home education pilot number 2
Stream Walk Garden had a lovely first session with our home education children and their carers earlier this month. We made rhubarb cordial in home-decorated, up-cycled bottles and had a salad safari which included mixing and tasting our own yummy dressings. Please join us for the second of our pilot sessions this Friday May 20th from 1-3pm. We will be feeding the butterflies and the hoverflies, making a store cupboard pallet garden and making our own elderflower cordial from blooms picked from the hedgerows. The cost is £7 per family (£5 concessions). Cash on the gate. Tea, coffee and biscuits on sale in the tea hut. Dress for the weather and we hope to see you there. No booking required.
Funding boost!
Stream Walk Community Garden has been awarded a £5,000 grant to help develop our outreach and development work.
The grant money has come to us from the Martello Fund via Kent Community Foundation under its Vulnerable Adults Themed programme. The funds will be used to provide garden activities for vulnerable and socially disadvantaged people over the summer months of 2022 (May to September) and will enable Stream Walk Trust to pay someone to lead weekly sessions in the garden and carry out development work as well as employing additional sessional support workers to assist attendees with additional needs.
Our project aims to increase the well-being, healthy eating and reduce the social isolation of vulnerable adults and children in the local community who may be experiencing loneliness, poor
mental health and social disadvantage.
The grant money comes from the Martello fund, managed by Kent Community Foundation, an organisation that finds, funds and supports some of the smallest voluntary organisations across the
county. KCF is part of a UK wide accredited network of 47 Community Foundations who are committed to improving the lives of local people and communities, particularly the most vulnerable, isolated, and disadvantaged by matching those who want to help, with those who need the help.
This grant news follows on from other recent donations from Tesco/Whistable Pearl 2 and Green Councillor, Clare Turnbull. These funds are being put towards buying new equipment and improving
signage at the garden. The fundraising team is now on a mission to raise more money to further develop activities into the autumn; our big goal is to fund the building of a small, all weather eco-buliding at the garden for us to be able to offer year round activities with a class room and kitchen.
If you’d like to help with fund-raising or make a donation, please go to our ‘Get involved‘ page.
Tomato plants for sale!
Get your organic tomato, lettuce, chard and herb plants at the garden today and Saturday 10-2pm. All ready to plant straight out!
Home schooling sessions at Stream Walk garden
Stream Walk Community Garden is keen to broaden its reach to the home education community so is hosting two pilot sessions for home educated children (and their carers) in the Whitstable area. Co-led by two teachers, we plan to run informal and relaxed gardening-related sessions based around play, exploration and natural enquiry. The garden space is beautiful. We have over 13 organic beds planted up for seasonal rotations of fruit, vegetables, flowers and herbs in addition to a dedicated children’s area with mud kitchen, digging patch and planting bed. There is also a wormery, a compost toilet and a pond! We can accommodate 25 families max (so please arrive early). The sessions will run on Friday May 6th and Friday May 20th from 1-3pm. Entry is £7 per family / £5 concessions-cash only. Tea, coffee and home-baked goodies will be for sale at the tea hut. Please dress for the weather and we very much look forward to seeing you there.
For more information please email: streamwalkcg@gmail.com
Spring!
Well we’re now into Spring and it’s starting to show with lovely blossom on the fruit trees, garlic and beans shooting up and the rhubarb ready to pick. The Thursday morning sessions have been busy with us doing lots of maintenance; Steve has been working on the hedges and Denis made some great chalk signs on slate for our veg beds and Belinda has been doing some weeding . The salad leaves have continued to flourish and each week we’ve been harvesting them, along with rhubarb, spinach and purple sprouting to sell at the gate and for our local customers and we’ve had another couple of Saturday openings where we’ve welcomed new volunteers. Little Green Fingers has had some very muddy sessions on Friday mornings and finally, and perhaps most excitingly, we’ve started a consultation on a new buildling for the garden to house workshps and group activities throughout the year. More details to follow….
Willow workshop
We had our first ever willow weaving workshops during the Easter holidays, courtesy of willow guru Nicole. We built obelisks with willow cut from the garden and volunteers’ gardens and learnt how to build these structures that are perfet for supporting sweetpeas and beans. We’re hoping to do more of this kind of activity over the coming months so if you’re interested in finding out more, email us at streamwalkcg@gmail.com. And if you’d like to buy an obelisk we have a few available for sale on Thursday morning so just pop in from 10am.
February
We had a very productive, if chilly month in February as well as some very strong winds to contend with. Felix helped us with cuttings and potting on, Irene prepared the ground for seed sowing with some mulch and Nicole worked on willow obelisks to support the sweet peas that will be planted in March. Early in the month we prepared the compost and heard from Jules how to take hard wood cuttings from our fruit bushes. And we also resumed our delivery of salad leaves to Gilberts Deli in Whitstable #gilbertswhit.
Thank you Yann and Jenny
For our lovely firebowl!
Little Green Fingers is back!
Please join us on Friday Feb 11th for Little Green Fingers gardening club for pre-schoolers. We’ll be checking on the worms and bug hotel and we’ve got a brand new children’s raised planting bed for vegetable growing. We need your help with worm food and pine cones this week so we can keep the worms well fed and make some seed balls for the birds. Please come dressed for the weather and mud.
We will be open from 9.30am-11.30am for pre schoolers and their adults.
£5 entry (£3 concessions) tea, coffee and biscuits available to buy at the tea shed. See you there!
A friendly, inclusive outoor space in the heart of Whitstable 