Thursday 10 June 2010

Things are growing

Photo www.tomleighton.co.uk

If you haven't been to the garden for a while, you're in for a treat.

Not only are the flowers settling in nicely thank you very much, but the shed and the gazebo are up. More and more people are coming in, helping or just being plain curious and having a look.

Morrisons, the repairs contractor for the estate, have kindly donated lots of new tools, including smaller children's tools (very cute they are too!).

But above all we are growing as a community. More and more people are starting to discover that they actually have friends as well as neighbours. With this in mind, we have a few events coming up over the summer and everyone is welcome. All the events are in the garden.

Monday 21st June 7pm: Social meeting. Come and have a drink and relax after work. There will also be some feedback from about fund-raising.


Sunday 18th July: Big Lunch. Have lunch with your neighbours. Bring along a dish (maybe a national dish from your country if you like) and share it with everyone else. This is part of The Eden Project's Big Lunch Event.


Monday 19th July 7pm: Garden meeting to discuss the remaining spending from the Cleaner, Greener, Safer fund.

Monday 16th August 7pm: Social meeting. Come and have a drink and relax after work.


Saturday 21st Aug: Estate funday. This is an annual event on the estate. We will be having a barbecue in the garden with fresh food from the garden and demonstrations on healthy cooking. There won't be a frozen hamburger in sight. And yes, you will be able to taste everything too.


Monday 20th Sept 7pm: Garden meeting.


Hopefully you will be able to come to some of the events during the summer. We are also talking to Camberwell Library to see if they can do some events for children...watch this space.



Thursday 11 March 2010



Our Secret Garden is nearly ready. We are having two planting and digging days on Thursday the 25th and Saturday the 27th March. Please come along and help make a difference to your community.

We are on the D'Eynsford estate off Kimpton Road. If you walk down Kimpton Road from Camberwell Church Street (By the KFC) you
will see us. It's about 15 metres on the right.

There will be free cakes and tea, and everyone is welcome, especially children.


With many thanks to the Walworth Garden Farm for all their help and work. Above is a photo of some of the crew and below a picture of the very shy artists who have designed the amazing new entrance.



Thursday 4 March 2010

The Secret Garden. Progress so far

So It has been a long time since there have been any updates but work is galloping along.

We won a bid from Southwark Council's "Cleaner, Greener, Safer" fund for £25,000. We felt on the estate that since we had got such a large amount of money, much more than we expected, we should open the garden to all residents in Camberwell. The place is big enough and should be a respite to the sirens that wail along Camberwell Church Street!

During last summer and this winter we have been consulting with residents on the estate and co-ordinating with Southwark Council to get the best out of this large amount of money. We were worried that the garden would end up looking like a corporately build place with no input from us.

Luckily we found Walworth Garden Farm from up the road who, with a team led by Tatiana, have been doing a fantastic job. The work is in progress and should be completed by the end of March.

We have a stunning new entrance which has been designed by a local artist (who has also created a storage bench for the garden too). New paths are being laid to create a woodland section at the beginning of the garden. The second section will get a new gazebo, seating, shed and more flowers than you can imagine. There will be a herb garden and a specially designed raised bed for children, using the granite slabs that originally bordered another part of the garden.

The final part of the garden is the working section of the garden. Fruits and vegetables are grown here and the greenhouse will provide us with seedlings and all kinds of produce. The section has had new raised beds made which are wheelchair accessible, the wall along one side has been made safe and there will be a new compost bin area.

To get the new garden off the ground we are having two planting and digging days.


Please come along on Thursday 25th March from 2pm-6pm or on Saturday 27th March from 10am - 4pm to help plant all the new flowers, bushes and trees.


As well as this we will be putting up the new shed, the new willow gazebo and filling in the raised beds. There will also be some planting of seeds in the greenhouse and much, much more.


Children as always will be welcome and we have new tools specially designed for small hands, and gloves to protect them too. (don't worry, we have adult sizes as well!).

Someone I am sure will provide us with cups of tea and cakes.

After the initial planting sessions, the new opening times will be: Thursdays 2pm - 5pm Saturday 10am - 2pm. Once we have enough volunteers who can commit to opening at other times we will do so. So if you want to volunteer, please get in touch.

You can email us at: deynsfordgarden@gmail.com or call Tom on 7701 5633 or 07939 250935.