Visit to Community Garden in Open Gardens Festival 2023

Given the hot weather for this year’s Festival and that this is our third, we focused on Gardens we haven’t seen before. So this afternoon we set off to Christchurch School Community Garden to see what was going on there. And we were pleased. It demonstrates what can be done with a pocket of land, off a busy main road, with some funding and lots of enthusiasm and knowledge – and effort. The description on the Festival brochure referred to raised beds for food crops, a community orchard, ornamental borders, a Forest School and a covered meeting hub. They also have a hugelkultur bed, a bee hive, a wildlife pond – and they were selling goji berry plants!

Joe got excited when he spotted a sign about Compost Paths (a layer of cardboard topped with wood chips, with weeds & green matter then strewn on top to be walked over: and in the autumn, all taken up to be used as mulch). I am yet to be persuaded that this is a good idea but we’ll see!

As the garden was only open today Sunday, we thought there was no point in letting others know about it, but their volunteers offer a friendly welcome to visitors every Friday from 10am till 4pm, their day of work. Its postal address is 45 Commerell Street, SE10 0DZ but the garden entrance is on Blackwall Lane, just along from Commerell St.

Lynda & Joe