The Growing Gardens Project is currently supported by the City Bridge Trust.




It needs a new funder from May 2011 onwards.

Fizzy Bottle Roof Project!!

60 old for sale sign posts, 350 metres of plastic water piping, 5 sheets of old building site hoarding, 2 old scaffold planks and the sweat of over 180 volunteers. Not your normal shopping list for a roof, but the Fizzy Bottle Roof isn’t a normal roof.

On the 30th of May 2010 residents of the community of Merton made there way down to the Growing Gardens Project at Deen City Farm, to turn 7000 plastic bottles into a roof.

The bottle roof has been designed and orchestrated by William Waterhouse and Louisa Loakes .The roof is the latest stage of the cob-building project, giving educational opportunities through each stage of its construction.

Beginning with the Foundations Project and the Cob wall Project then a recycled mosaic floor Project and the Fizzy bottle Roof Project. The building is now an educational tool and a space that can be used to house further projects.

Money donated by a regular visitor and admirer of the garden made the project possible, a gesture of good will that proved contagious. The help and enthusiasm just kept coming. Over the leading months residents bought down their collected bottles by the bin bag loads. So many so that we had to call upon the charity of a local storage company who were only too happy to help out.

The roof shares the philosophy found in allotments and city farms. It’s about making do with what you have. All the materials used in the construction of the roof are familiar urban waste materials collected from the surrounding neighbourhood.

“True art is built by the people for the people”

A quote from William Morris who would have worked on the same banks of the River Wandle over 100 years ago, joint founder of the arts and crafts movement and an active socialist. I speculate he would be happy to be quoted in conjunction with the fizzy bottle project.
Next
The Fizzy Bottle Community Build day went as smooth as anyone could have hoped for. With the process of turning bottles into tiles broke down into 5 easy stages to accommodate all ages.  Stage 3 was lining up the bottles to be squashed by a 2-ton road roller, which was kindly donated by a local tool hire company (also infected with goodwill). People swapped and changed through out the day between the several stages of construction dotted around the garden.

The bottles were de-labelled by the chicken coops, hole punched on the lawn, screwed together in the raised bed area then passed up to the men in hard hats to fix them to the roof, just in time for the rain. Job done.

The Growing Gardens Project is a community garden run by project coordinator Louisa Loakes and a regular stream of volunteers. The project has enjoyed recognition for its efforts scooping many well-deserved awards over the years including Merton in Bloom and the Guardian Green Building Award for the Fizzy Bottle Roof Project.

The roof stands as a reminder of the benefits to a world that needs to become more ingenious with its resources.

Thank you to all who supported the project, The local community, volunteers at the farm and garden, the City Bridge Trust, Mayday Plant hire, Big Yellow storage Merton, Thames water Brixton, N.I.S.P. and everyone else who helped.