All about the People's Garden

Would you like to know more about The Peoples Community Garden? Here's Susannah Robirosa to tell you more:

The latest garden course and another volunteer story

The peoples garden regularly holds gardening courses - take a look at the latest one:

Volunteer Stories

The People's Garden has ventured into the world of youtube! you can already see how to take care of your secatures in a previous post and now you have a chance to see some of our volunteers stories:

A new year

A month into the new year and there is already a lot happening at the garden. 

A new porch roof has been build on the cabin:

And there are two new plots, one which will become an African garden, a project the People's Garden is undertaking with Chantry high school:

In the meantime we have been muck spreading on the other new plot:

While the volunteers muck spread and dug over a patch for onions to go in, Rick was in full flow with the new garden course - it was very cold Friday so they were huddling in the poly tunnel with a heater:

Winter Pruning

The ground was frozen solid this morning, so there was no digging at the garden today! Instead Ric taught us how to prune soft fruit and fruit trees - we learnt how to cut so we didn't squash a bud, where to cut so as to promote the growth we want, always cutting to an outward facing bud:

 

You can tell it was cold today! So that we didn't all freeze solid, we also did some work in the cabin, and Ric explained how to take care of your secateurs:

Karibu community group and some garden news

Karibu is a multicultural women's group run by Lara Uzokwe, and recently Susannah went to visit them to talk all things gardening.

They had a lovely time hearing about the people's garden and Susannah invited them to come along. In return Karibu have asked Susannah to visit their group through the winter to give gardening tips, and then they hope to start coming to the garden in the spring:

 

Meanwhile in the garden,  Lawrence and Sean made an exciting discovery - some not so common, common lizards which have made their home on the lizard bank! Its nice to know the accommodation is approved of:

Pumpkin Soup

Want to try something warm and satisfying? How about this soup with crusty bread rolls:

picture from http://www.cupcakegrenade.com/ 

 Ingredients

1 pumpkin

2-3 onions

vegetable or chicken stock

Butter

vegetable oil

salt and pepper

Method

Set your oven to its hottest, then cut the pumpkin onto four and remove the seeds. put a little oil, salt and pepper on your pumpkin then bake until it is cooked - soft when you cut it with a knife.

In the meantime chop up your onions and fry at a hot temperature in butter and oil, for a minute, then turn right down and slow fry until caramelised - soft and brown.

Put your cooked pumpkin, any juice from it, and the onions in a food mixer and blend - add hot stock to make it the thickness you like, serve with bread rolls.