Today we will be concentrating on the garden on Spring Hill, removing, no doubt, more snow berries and pruning raspberries ready for the winter!!
The garden is half way up Spring Hill, heading from King Square on Jamaica St, up towards Kingstown. Half way up the hill on the left is a path that leads to this space!!
Why not pop along and lend a hand?
This work party will focus on the Garden at Spring Hill, Jackie’s Garden, some of which is being looked after by some residents but which needs some Incredible Edible TLC.
The garden is half way up the hill to Kingstown from Kings Square on your left and is a beautiful and quiet retreat from the bustle of Stokes Croft. why not pop along and see what we are up to!
Today we went on a little walk around the gardens in Stokes Croft, including the gardens at Marlborough Hill Street and Spring Hill.
Both gardens looked amazing. The trees are thriving on Marlborough Hill Street as are the artichokes and all the wonderful herbs that have been planted there and we really look forward to maintaining and adding to that garden this year. It’s a fun garden on a completely lost piece of ground and it’s exciting to see it start to have a life of it’s own, expand and start to provide Fruit and herbs for the community in which is sits.
Then we doodled up the hill to Spring Hill, another garden that has changed a lot since we first started to work on it, and which is now looked after by the community who have done a grand job of changing the space into one that is both productive and beautiful. This is another space that when we started to do some work there, took a lot of cleaning and tidying. There were cans, needles and nappies galore as well as some very sick looking plants! Strawberries and raspberries are now thriving where one there were just weeds and the beds which were also full of weeds and sick shrubs are being used for soft fruit and vegetables such as onions, garlic and broad beans.
It’s an absolute joy to be in and can only get better.If you would like to get involved in either of these gardens, or any of the other 27 gardens across the city, please do get in touch with us at info@ediblebristolorguk.wpcomstaging.com and we will let you know when work parties are planned for!! After all, if you eat, you’re in!!
Today we went on a little walk around the gardens in Stokes Croft, including the gardens at Marlborough Hill Street and Spring Hill.
Both gardens looked amazing. The trees are thriving on Marlborough Hill Street as are the artichokes and all the wonderful herbs that have been planted there and we really look forward to maintaining and adding to that garden this year. It’s a fun garden on a completely lost piece of ground and it’s exciting to see it start to have a life of it’s own, expand and start to provide Fruit and herbs for the community in which is sits.
Then we doodled up the hill to Spring Hill, another garden that has changed a lot since we first started to work on it, and which is now looked after by the community who have done a grand job of changing the space into one that is both productive and beautiful. This is another space that when we started to do some work there, took a lot of cleaning and tidying. There were cans, needles and nappies galore as well as some very sick looking plants! Strawberries and raspberries are now thriving where one there were just weeds and the beds which were also full of weeds and sick shrubs are being used for soft fruit and vegetables such as onions, garlic and broad beans. It’s an absolute joy to be in and can only get better.If you would like to get involved in either of these gardens, or any of the other 27 gardens across the city, please do get in touch with us at info@ediblebristolorguk.wpcomstaging.com and we will let you know when work parties are planned for!! After all, if you eat, you’re in!!
Today Sara, our project lead and founder, went to lunch at the cafe at St Paul’s Learning Centre, that is run by FareShare SW’s Surplus Supper Club. Here’s what she thought!!
I was invited to this lunch a couple of weeks ago and was excited to be going as it is run by our Food Route Local collaborators FareShare South West through their catering arm, the Surplus Supper Club. The concept is that food that FareShare are donated is used to provide lunches for people to buy at a ridiculously reasonable price, whilst creating both jobs for local people and putting some money back into FareShare SW making it a far more self sustaining charity. So off I trundled in the freezing cold to the cafe which is situated within St Paul’s Learning Centre.
I really like the cafe space in the Learning Centre as it’s bright and airy and there are full length windows so you can watch what is going on outside in the rich and diverse community of St Paul’s. The tables and chairs are a great miss mash of up cycled furniture and all the tables have fresh, British grown flowers on them and info about the Surplus Supper Club. We went up to the canteen style counter first and I was both amazed and delighted at the range of hot lunches available, amongst which were prawn paella, onion tart with artichokes and olives and toad in the hole. I plumped for the tart and my guest went for the toad. Neither of us were disappointed!!
The onion tart was on a rich buttery base and the onions had been sweated down with balsamic so they were deliciously sweet, with the artichokes and olives adding a touch of bitterness that was just perfect to balance it all out. The toad in the hole, I am reliably informed, was equally as delicious, with light and tasty Yorkshire pudding encasing perfectly cooked chipolatas on a bed of creamy mash with a rich gravy.
What shocked me more than anything was the prices!! These dishes were delicious and the cost in total for us both to eat would have been £6.50. The prices are set at veggie main courses are all £3.00 and anything with meat in is £3.50. Both of us considered that was a complete bargain as the food was not just delicious but the quality seemed to be really high too.
What it is important to remember is that if initiatives like these didn’t exist this food would be headed for bins and in many cases landfill which seems extraordinary when you are invited to eat such wonderful food which there is absolutely nothing wrong with whatsoever. Having chatted with both FareShare and the Surplus Supper club crew it seems that often this food is going to waste purely because it might have been labelled incorrectly or has simply been over ordered by warehouses.
So if you are in St Pauls, or within walking/cycling distance of it for lunch, I strongly recommend this cafe. Not only will you get a delicious lunch, but the busier they are, the more food is saved from landfill!!
Thanks Sara. We are also aware that the Surplus Supper Club can cater for events, large and small, so if you would like to get in touch with them they are on Facebook, on Twitter @surplussupper and their website is surplussupperclub.org
Meet by the bus stop opposite the Full Moon to help us to maintain the beds on and around Stokes Croft!! We will be clearing old plants away and encouraging reseeding by spreading the seeds they have produced along the way!
Do come along and say hello or join in for a while. To quote someone at the bus stop only the other day “what a difference seeing flowers makes when First buses are always bleedin’ late”.
Come along to help us mulch and replant the bed outside St Paul’s learning centre!!
We are helping Sustrans out on this bed, which is a part of the Imagine St Paul’s project that is aiming to make the streets of St Paul’s a better place for pedestrians and local people!!
We will be on site from 12-2