The Ambition Lawrence Weston allotment is really starting to be a productive space!
Lots of #nodig beds, lots of veg growing away happily and areas for wildlife and people to meet!
Lots of folk are making this happen, which just goes to show the power of collaboration.
Crops are being harvested and growing at the Secret Garden on platform 2 of Avonmouth Station!!
Food metres, not miles!!
The day may have begun foggy and freezing but as the sun broke through in Avonmouth at the Secret Garden, it’s great to see it being used by our small friends, the insects and spiders!!
A brilliant picture of the gardens in Millennium Square, which will soon be full of produce for the city!!
It’s been a bit cold and frosty, but that’s good news for the gardens!
Hopefully, the frost will have killed off some pests and diseases!
We began work on rearranging the garden in Castle Park this week.
Weeds were removed, strawberries rejigged to create edges and lots of broad beans were sown as green manure to feed and replenish the soil.
Next, we’ll introduce lots of long-lasting fruit bushes and shrubs along with underplantings of herbs!
Definitely watch this space!!
These peas were sown in September as autumn sown peas ready for an early crop in 2023.
With the ongoing warmth, they’ve not just started flowering but are also putting on pods.
We’re yet to see if the pods swell before the weather gets cold.
A gentle reminder that whilst gardening and food growing is what we do, it’s 100% as a response to the climate crisis and that as we head into the mid-2020s, the crisis is, quite literally, heating up.
The magical willow hedge growing beautifully in its second year.
Willow is so important for so many reasons but growing it and using it as infrastructure makes it twice as useful!
In March of this year, just as we had received funding to continue our work in the Bearpit, (James Barton roundabout) we were asked by the head of green and blue places in the city, to cease working on the garden as they had come up with a plan that was all about creating a pollinator rich garden where the garden we had worked on since 2016 was.
Now, for sure the garden was, at that point, far from perfect. The ravages of 2017 when the space was inaccessible, mixed with a lack of funding for the garden and then Covid on top of that, when all volunteering in public spaces was stopped, rightly, but the Bristol Parks team, meant that there was a lot of work to do in the space, but having procured funding from an outside source, which would have meant a team in the garden for a day a week, we were excited to bring the garden back to a place where food and pollinator rich planting was abundant.
Unfortunately what seems to have happened since is absolutely nothing. The plants are all overgrown, it’s covered in litter and filth, and it feels immensely disrespectful that a space that had been worked on entirely voluntarily, and which over the years had only cost Bristol Council £7,500 in funding in the first year, has been left to rack and ruin.
What also is of concern is that there was no consultation from the council on this decision, whereas before our garden was designed and planted we had spent days engaging with people in the Bearpit and those who used it regularly. Every single person we spoke to wanted to see nature and food as a part of the garden, which is why the garden was designed as a food forest.
We are really both sad and angry that this has happened. We have sat back and said nothing as we expected the council teams to respect the work that had been done and continue it in some way. But instead we see hugely expensive containers and baskets full of flowers that might be bright but which speak nothing to the climate or biodiversity crisis we have acknowledged.
As COP26 is happening we would like to call on the council to recognise the failure of this space, and a need to do better in public spaces, and especially in spaces that they have removed from community organisations with no consultation at all. The city centre ought to be a place of richness and abundance in spaces where planting takes place, and instead off which looks sad and neglected. From the Bearpit to the area around the Cenotaph and the fountains, the planting is unimaginative and where there could be rain gardens, vertical planting and food, there is nothing more interesting than you might see in a supermarket car park. We have acknowledged climate and biodiversity crises, and yet the city is not seeming to respond.
We would like to add that this is nothing against Bristol Parks department who’s support we have always been grateful for.
But this is a call to return the Bearpit to us, and fund us to do the work to recreate a garden that had international acclaim, brought in visitors from far and wide, and added to the culture in the city centre. And as a reminder here is what it looked like in it’s hey day……
Our core team of community gardeners is core to our work in and around the city centre spaces and we are looking to grow the team that supports the gardens in Millennium Square and in Castle Park on Thursdays from 10-2.
The core team is made up of people who are able to commit to 2 of our 4-hour work parties each month and in return learn all about the systems of growing we use to ensure we’re growing good food for people and for pollinators, whilst at the same time building soil health, and planting to support the climate.
The gardens in Millennium Square have been through a difficult time in the last few months, neglected during the lockdowns and vandalised for the first time ever by visiting football fans, so this opportunity to begin with us just got those gardens on a Thursday, although it’s possible other gardens may need support too over the next few months. So if you can spare 2 Thursdays from 10-2 per month, and would like to get involved with Edible Bristol, and our call for community-based change in our food system, why not get in touch? Just drop an email to sara@ediblebristol.org.uk