Thursday 26th April - Trip to Thrive Gardens in Battersea Park

Unfortunately rain stopped our plans up at the allotment this Thursday - we had hoped to continue our planting of bare rooted strawberry plants and various seeds, but the constant showers put our original plans back a week as we still have no shelter up at the plot yet.

Instead, the idea to pop to Battersea Park to see the Thrive gardens was suggested, and we agreed that rather than sit in a shed, we could go and see what was growing at Thrive.

Arriving at Thrive Herb Garden in Battersea - umbrella's  prepared for the next downpour...

Thrive are a small national charity who work with people with various disabilities and impairments and provide support to help them experience and learn about gardening. The link to their website is here: Thrive

We took the train from Herne Hill station to Battersea Park and walked to the Thrive garden - it was being re-developed, so there wasn't a lot there, the man in charge explaining that there is a herb garden run by Thrive in another part of the park. After sheltering from a particularly heavy rain shower we made it to the Thrive herb garden and the sun came out!

We had a look around, and learnt what some of the plants look like from the top (potato plants have green leafs above the soil - the potatoes grow below it - see picture below)

Potato plant - the green leaves grow above the soil - the potatoes below it - from http://muffintop.wordpress.com/category/shopping/

We also looked in the greenhouse at some of the plants which had just started to grow (or germinate) from seeds and are known as seedlings - they all look very similar at first, but on closer look, some were quite different, like the cucumber seedling.

Seedlings in the greenhouse at Thrive

We then explored the gardens some more, taking some photographs to record what we saw as you can see below;

Some onions

The centre of the Herb Garden, Thrive in Battersea

Broad Beans

Netting protecting Pea Plants from pests like birds and slugs

The tops of the Potato Plant!

Chard - it comes with various coloured stalks like above, red and orange

About to leave the Thrive Herb Garden and travel back home

All in all a trip in which we got to see how another project works, the kind of plants we may grow, and hopefully we will be inspired with some idea's for our own project!

Thursday 19th April - the first day of the project...

Last Thursday - 19/4/12 - was the first day of the gardening project - we're still getting up and running so not everything (shelter during rain, raised beds) are ready, put we did have our first session where (between heavy showers) we planted a few strawberries out in the strawberry patch and painted a couple of boards for the raised beds.

Due to the rain we stayed up at the plot from 10-12, then decided the rain was too much, so we walked down to Croxted Road Garden Centre which is based under a railway arch - see the photo here;

Croxted Road Garden Centre

We then decided to head to a cafe at Herne Hill to warm up. We ended up in Steves Cafe where we discussed any ideas how we could improve the project and what we could do when it rains.

All in all, the session went well, but the rain didn't help with any of the jobs which needed to be done on the allotment, but we got some jobs done and know where the local garden centre - and cafe - are!

Gardening project first day is on Thursday 19th April 2012!

Hi and welcome to the Rathbone Gardening Project!

We are quite excited to be beginning the project on Thursday 19th April - not everything is looking perfect on the site, but a few hours of hard work from all who attend on Thursday and it'll be looking better in no time!

If you would like to attend the project, please give the office or Martin a call on the contact details listed on the top of the main blog page.

We'll try to update the blog as often as we can > keep a look out for any photo's of the site, they will be uploaded here - like the ones below:
 

This is how the allotment looked when Rathbone first visited in March - the view is down the hill towards east London

This is the view of the same allotment looking up towards the Peabody Estate in the background