The Garden
Visitors to the Farm enter through our garden area, where we have a variety of flowers, fruit and vegetables growing. The gardens are managed almost entirely by volunteers. We have individual volunteers and corporate volunteers. In 2017 we were delighted to win Best Community Garden at the Merton in Bloom Awards, and last year we got the runners up spot – we hope to reclaim the trophy in 2019.
The gardens are central to the work that we do a the Farm. As well as providing a peaceful outdoor environment for local people we offer volunteer placements, educational visits and a space for visitors of all ages to enjoy. In 2016 we worked with the London Wildlife Trust to build a Rain Garden as part of a project to improve the use of rainwater all along the River Wandle – it combines modern plastic storage tanks with beautiful hand made wooden sculpture.
As we don’t have a budget for the garden, we welcome any donations of plants and shrubs.
The Cob Building
In our Pony Ride area we have a Cob Building that features a fizzy bottle roof. Designed and built in 2010 with a lot of help from the local community, especially when it came to collecting the 5000 odd plastic bottles needed for the roof. You can read more on the fizzy bottle roof and how it was designed and built on the Growing Gardens Project Blog.
