What a day!

Finally getting our hands dirty

We’ve spent a long time planning, plotting and waiting for permissions to come through. And of course, looking at the skies in an especially rainy spring and wondering if we’d ever be able to go into the garden and get our hands dirty.

Finally, the stars aligned, and you’d be hard-pressed to see a more enthusiastic group of people anywhere.

Surprising finds

The litter pickers made some great discoveries, including

• a “Ladies” sign from the old Colinton Mains Bowling Club
• bowling balls and shoes
• animal bones, potentially from foxes and badgers
• a fire extinguisher, presumably from a fire at the site after the club closed down

Paths towards a new chapter for the site

Elsewhere, our members and new volunteers were busy trimming back hedges, mowing the grass and digging up weeds and saplings.

We cleared and widened existing paths and even found a ramp which will help us get materials on site in future – thanks to a former member of the bowling club who remembered much of the original layout.

All in all, nearly forty people – trustees, existing members, new volunteers, as well as some local visitors wanting to know what was going on at the site – were there to help and find out more about our work. And we’ve recruited many new members from our volunteers on the day and others who read about our work on social media.

Onwards and upwards

We were all super excited not just to finally be working on the site, but also to see so much interest and support from the local community. Everyone came away energised and eager to do more.

Superb day, came away on a wee high on life!

Sharon, garden trustee

We’re looking forward to many more days in our new community garden, and are already planning our next garden day.

Still can’t get over yesterday and how many lovely people came and helped out.

garden trustee

If you’d like to join us (it’s free!) or want to know more about what we’re doing, please use our contact form to get in touch.

Thank you!

To finish up, some well-deserved thanks:

• The members and volunteers who planned the day, posted flyers, brought tools and refreshments, and last but not least came together and did an incredible amount of work
• Edible Estates for their help with getting us to this place, tools, admin work and, and, and…
• The Hub for letting us use their space for breaks and to prepare and store refreshments
• Oxgangs Library for supporting local charities with meeting facilities and free printing