New Routes: November 2008

by Jill Coleman

 
Well, the Open Day at the orchard was a great success. In the middle of a grey, chilly week, blighted with squally showers, the weather was kind to us on the day and offered up blue skies and fluffy white clouds. We had a good turn out, with almost all of the Youth Service team, plus their teachers, and all of the learners who attended our Centre that morning.

The Groundworks Trust did us proud, supplying a buffet lunch as well as running the workshops. The apples that we picked last month were retrieved from storage and were cored, chopped and put through the juicer for everyone to sample. Meanwhile another group were out in the orchard, learning how to plant daffodil bulbs. Sadly the pruning workshop had to be cancelled, as Tom the visiting horticulturalist had hurt his back earlier in the week. It’s a pity, as I was hoping to grab him for some advice on how to deal with our unruly grape and kiwi fruit vines. 

Such events always go a way to raising the profile of the project, but they also serve another purpose. We very often find that if we ask people if they would like to try some gardening they refuse straight away because they understand horticulture to be a damp, cold and dirty activity involving lots of digging in the mud.

An Open Day gives us an opportunity to challenge these preconceptions. Yes, there is a bit of good old-fashioned digging for those that enjoy it – in fact, for some of the workers, it’s easier to get them to dig over our vegetable patch than it is to persuade them to do the washing up! However, the general set up is to ensure a more therapeutic style: lots of raised beds and a big polytunnel to allow a working area under cover. 

We run whole sessions based around garden-themed arts and crafts which range from painting watercolours of our flowers through making bird feeders to planting up hanging baskets. While we want to sell what we grow we want, more importantly, for our learners to have a positive experience of community gardening, because this is what will make them want to return and then build up their confidence and abilities.