The Thursday gardening morning following The Big Lunch was extraordinarily busy with a record number of 22 people dropping in during the course of the morning to volunteer, to buy vegetables or to talk about making referrals for people to do therapeutic gardening with us.
We also had a team from Marks and Spencer who presented us with some very good quality gardening tools. M&S volunteers had previously spent several days with us painting the garden room, benches and raised beds and doing some heavy digging. A big thank you to all!
Brilliant to have so much interest, but the numbers of people and the variety of reasons for coming mean we will have to organise different days for different activities. Our regular core team of gardeners is still quite small- we maintain the Muddy boots garden, grow plants and vegetables to sell and supply Jim Haston with seedlings for his nursery garden.
When our gardening team grows, it is our plan to offer garden help to local people who cannot manage their own plots. We also need to arrange care of the garden on days other than Thursdays- a heatwave in July made this very obvious!
We have acquired another grant and a gift which will enable us to buy new benches and safe flooring for the seating area. Children will be helping to paint trees and wildlife pictures on the inside of the garden room during the school summer holidays. This room is More than a Shed! We want to see art, storytelling and writing, poetry, reflection and prayer happening in there. Come and share with us what you would like to do….
At our board meeting on 31st July we agreed to explore niche markets- maybe growing herbs, specialised vegetables to order or spring planters. Any ideas of things you would like us to grow?
We will be offering opportunities for training, not only in gardening but also, through our supporters SmithMartin LLP, we are offering, among other things, training in IT and in running a book business. We are looking for a Book Champion to develop Broadway Books. …. Reading is a vital way to grow in knowledge and understanding of the world.
Remember- we are growing people as well as plants.
Send us your ideas and inspiration– you can visit the Muddy Boots Gardening Project Facebook page to see up to date photographs- or come and visit us on Thursday mornings or at other times by arrangement. We look forward to meeting you!
We are now on the Twitter: @broadway_help
