We’re on the map! Take a look at our new beautiful sign. It was masterfully designed by Amy, one of our Duke of Edinburgh volunteers.

Welcome to April’s garden update everyone, our biggest to date, and some BIG news…

Auntie is coming to the garden!

Peter is doing a piece about bees with the crew from Countryfile.

The BBC TV programme is currently filming out of RHS Wisley Garden and using it as a hub to connect with local projects. They really liked the Rosamund story and will be coming to film this week. The piece will also include a little bit about the cob house and pollinator planting at the garden.

Wisley are donating some pollinator-friendly plants for us to plant in our perennial bed with the presenter.

Watch this space for when it’ll be on telly!

🗓️ UPCOMING EVENTS AT THE GARDEN

🤣Laughter Yoga with Elspeth from Joyful Outdoors, Wednesday 3rd April 11:00 am to 11:45 am

Laugh with a Friend ticket for 2 people is available for £15

Tickets» HERE 

🀩Spring Foraging Walk with Tasters with Elspeth from Joyful Outdoors, Thursday 11th April 10:00 am to 12:30 pm

£35 pp with a 10% discount for RCG members - use promo code RCG10 at checkout. 

10% of all ticket sales from this event will be donated to Rosamund Community Garden. 

Tickets» HERE

⬇️Drop in Events at the Garden

• Wednesday 3rd April PM - Countryfile filming (please check with Clare beforehand if you’re planning to come to the garden as it needs to be a limited number)

• Tuesday April 23rd 10:00 to 2:30 Cobbing the Hub with Galiford Try - all welcome

• Sunday 14th April 2:30 - 4:00 Sowing seed and Planting Out Demo with Clare (all welcome)

🌿Rosamund Field Restoration Work by Helen Harris

Super news this month: with the support of National Charity BugLife we have been able to remove a large amount of hawthorn from the Rosamund Field – opening up the rare grassland beneath before it is lost. 

Some of you may not know that the volunteers at Rosamund Community Garden not only run our community garden and orchard but also look after 15 acres of fields on a north-facing slope below the garden itself. This land is chalk grassland that has in the past been ploughed for crops, then used for grazing. Now we are doing what we can to restore it to the “mini rainforest” it has the potential to be.

The area is a home for skylarks and even the rare small blue butterfly and in the summer numerous orchids can be seen. However, the Western end of the larger of our two fields, adjacent to the newly protected Pewley Meadows, has become very overgrown with hawthorn too large to remove by hand.

This winter, we have been lucky enough to work with BugLife to restore this area of the field using a mechanical grabber, which made easy work of removing the young trees, with minimal disturbance to the ground surface. The work was expertly done by Michael Gray and Richard Dale of Heathland Conservation Services. 

Around half the overgrown area was cleared to approximately 30 percent – creating a mosaic habitat with just smaller pockets of scrub (hawthorn, dog rose and blackthorn) remaining. This mixed habitat is thought to be optimal for biodiversity: the grassland is no longer threatened but some scrub remains, providing cover for small mammals and nesting space for birds such as meadow pippets, greater whitethroats, black caps and stonechats.

To reduce disturbance to the site the work is being done in two phases. Half done this early Spring and the remaining half next late Autumn. Spring/Summer is avoided because of nesting birds and flowering plants. 

Why are we doing this? Although more scrub and woodland is generally a good thing for nature, when it is overtaking a rare habitat like chalk grassland, it needs removing. The rarer grassland species cannot survive under tree cover and the biodiversity gain of protecting the rare habitat, where many endangered species can thrive, justifies the removal of the young trees.

Buglife is a national charity that exists “save the small things that run the planet” i.e. to address the conservation needs of invertebrates in the UK. One of BugLife’s well-known campaigns is “B-Lines”. This aims to create a national network of connected habitat suitable for pollinators and other insects across our towns and countryside.

Rosamund Garden sites nicely on an existing B-Line making the site valuable in how it connects to other local areas useful for pollinators as they move across our landscape.

Huge thanks to all at BugLife and in particular to Louis Harrington-Edmans who made this project possible for us. 

⭐VOLUNTEER SPOTLIGHT - Margaret

I first got involved with community gardening whilst living in the Highlands, and when I moved back south I was looking for somewhere similar. I remembered Rosamund Community Garden from when I'd come across information about it through the Transition Town movement, but had never visited until 2020. On my first visit to the garden I was struck by the beauty and spirit of the place and the warm welcome from the other volunteers.

Since then I have helped with growing vegetables and flowers, creating a wildlife meadow, apple pressing, attended wassail and a botany walk, a little bit of cobbing, looking after the ponds, collecting manure and other jobs as needed. I joined the committee to be more involved and have been leading the wildlife pond project.

There is always something new to learn and what makes this place so different is the continual presence of nature, always changing. The other day a huge flock of birds on migration took up residence in the trees for a while. The sound was amazing. Another time a slowworm curled up by a new plant near the pond. On another occasion we were excited to discover solitary bees nesting in a bank of soil.

The other element is the sense of community - we are all supporting each other and we share similar aims. After working at the garden I always return home renewed, and sometimes with produce - this week some beautiful salads and nettles to make soup. Thank you Rosamund

🌱GARDEN NEWS FROM CLARE

The April showers have come early and things are certainly a bit soggy underfoot at the garden. However, we’ve had a very busy time with lots of new volunteers starting as the garden starts to come out of hibernation.

The fruit-trees in the orchard and near the poly-tunnel are all bursting into flower and the bumblebees are venturing out between the showers. 

The poly-tunnels are still full of tasty leaves from the winter salads and kales planted last year and the volunteers have been enjoying the different flavours from spicy rocket and mustards to lemony sorrels and sweet chervil.

Elsewhere, broad beans and field beans are coming into flower, providing nectar for long-tongued bees and creating a nitrogen rich soil.

We have been harvesting our baby leeks, which have stood over the winter and are delicious and mild in a stir-fry.

The raised beds built last month by Skillmill are being lined and then we will use the Hugelkulture method to fill them. This is a German practise, where the bottom half of the beds are filled with branches, woodchips, and anything that will rot down from the garden. This is a great money-saving technique and also provides the plants with a slow release of nutrients from the decaying matter. The hawthorn removed from the meadows last month have been chipped and put in the field below the garden. We’re using this for the beds and will order in some soil to fill them up ready for planting.

DofE

Amy, one of our DofE students, has been painting again and has created a stunning sign pointing to the garden from Longdown Road,

The DofE group and their mums have been hard at work preparing the dye bed and have created a wonderful hazel border for it from all our offcuts.

They are researching dye plants and the next session will be sowing seed and planning the layout. Some of the plants are already in the garden: Nettle, dock, dandelion and elderberry. The girls have discovered that onion-skins, beetroot, red cabbage and marigolds can be used as well as woad, madder and dyers chamomile.

Pond

Margaret had a nice day for the pond day last Sunday. The volunteers managed to clear a section of bramble around the borders and planted some native whips. They also made a start on planting the native plants raised by Margaret last year. We have some lovely marsh marigolds flowering in the pond, and looking forward to the water-lillies in the summer months. No frogs spawn yet but hopefully they’ll get the message at some point.

New Furniture

Arthur Merrie and friends have made four picnic tables for the garden. He makes these out of recycled railway timbers, and they’re really sturdy and beautifully finished. We’re really grateful for these as our old tables are becoming pretty unusable and wobbly. They’ll make a great addition dotted around the garden and they were extremely reasonable as Arthur says he loves making them for community projects like ours.

Sowing and planting

Ann has been busy in her greenhouse at home, and now has a lovely load of young tomato plants, salads, broadbeans and peas, waiting (like the rest of us) for the weather to warm up, before they can be planted at the garden.

Ringway’s Andrew has started sowing seeds in poly 2 for their re-greening project and we’re hoping to help them make some rustic trellis for their new planters at the depot.

Our new potting tables will arrive soon (donated by Zero) and we’ll have lots of surface to sow on.

🌿PLANT OF THE MONTH - “BORAGE”

Borage is an annual herb that self-seeds and appears year after year at the garden. It grows quickly after the frosts have gone and can become 12 - 18 inches wide, providing a beautiful abundance of blue star-shaped flowers.

As well as an attractive, pollinator-friendly garden plant, borage has an amazing abundance of medicinal and culinary properties.

Its leaves have a pleasant cucumber taste and can be used raw in salads, cooked like spinach or brewed in a tea.

The flowers can be brewed to make herbal tea, sprinkled in salads or used to decorate a jug of Pimms.

Oil from the seeds is sold as a popular borage oil herbal supplement, and it’s a plant-based source of Omega fatty acids, great for pre-menstrual tension.

Borage Tea

Borage tea has many uses - it treats nervous disorders, stimulates lactation in breastfeeding mothers, reduces fevers, relieves stress and stops coughing. 

A crushed borage poultice helps with: insect bites, bee stings, swelling, bruising, rashes and boils!

Look out for it at the garden and spread the seed around for next year’s crop. Not just a pretty face!

🐌APRIL JOBS AT THE GARDEN

• Sow seeds in modules in the poly-tunnel 2 (make sure they’re covered to avoid mouse probs.)

• Check seedlings for watering and water the poly-tunnel beds when dry.

• Prepare and weed the front beds for planting

• Edge the beds where needed

• Bring hawthorn up from the lower field and put into the new raised beds.

• Harvest salads and leaves, edible flowers and baby leeks.

📰COMMUNITY NEWS

🌻What’s all the fuss about foraging? by Elspeth

“It sounds complicated”, “I don’t want to kill myself”, “I can get all I need from the supermarket”, “I wouldn’t know where to start anyway”….

To celebrate the arrival of Spring, we talked to our resident forager, Elspeth Fimpel from Joyful Outdoors, about the benefits of foraging and eating wild food. 

As keen gardeners and supporters of Rosamund Community Garden, we probably don’t have to tell you how important it is to connect with nature, not only for your own health and wellbeing, but also to boost and support biodiversity. As humans, we’re designed to be outside, to tend and interact with the natural environment, but even for outdoor lovers it’s easy to let that slip in the pace of the modern world. 

Researchers at the University of Derby have shown that people with a strong connection to nature, are happier, have improved mental wellbeing and greater vitality and are more willing to take action to help wildlife and the environment. 

However, building this strong connection is not about the amount of time spent outdoors, it’s also crucial that we develop a meaningful and engaged relationship with nature. Starting a love affair with wild plants, getting to know native trees and eating wild food is a great way to do this. 

Foraging isn’t just about gathering food; it’s about slowing down, observing, appreciating the ecosystems around us and moving with the changing seasons; providing us with ‘green therapy’ and helping us to de-stress and find calm. And it also makes dog walks much slower but more fascinating! 

Eating wild food allows us to diversify our intake, improve our health and take control of our own nutrition in a way which is seasonal and unprocessed, preservative and plastic-free, has zero or low food miles and is easy on the wallet! Unlike highly processed foods, our bodies know what to do with wild plants and they’re great for improving our gut microbiome. 

Did you know that dandelion leaves are so high in vitamin C that they were traditionally used to treat scurvy; dried dandelion roots can be turned into a rich, smoky tea; it’s flowers brighten up a spring salad, make mushroomy fritters or are perfect as the base for a gorgeous yellow cake. All parts of dandelion are edible and contain most of the vitamins & minerals that we need in a form that our bodies can easily process. And dandelion is just one well-known example, there are so many so-called weeds that we stomp on which actually taste great and have extensive health benefits. 

Foragers sometimes get bad press but most of the plants talked about on foraging walks are widely considered weeds and are so successful & abundant that we’d struggle to overpick them. When we forage in a considered & considerate way, it is low impact and significantly lower impact than modern agricultural practices. 

We’re keen to bring our community together and hope you’ll join Elspeth’s foraging walk, see events above for details. She’ll bring delicious tasters for you to enjoy made from foraged ingredients and you’ll leave brimming with inspiration and armed with many ideas on how to use nature’s abundance of wild greens. 

Elspeth also teaches laughter yoga, beginners’ bushcraft and map reading & navigation, see https://joyfuloutdoors.co.uk/event-calendar for a full list of upcoming workshops. 

🐝 From Peter Smith - Want to know more about the dreaded Asian Hornet? And to taste some honey?

Come along to Guildford ZERO on Thursday, April 18th from 7:30 to 9:00! RCG hecklers especially welcome 🤗😆 »CLICK TO BOOK

And if you are into moths, look out for these in April:

🦋GARDEN VOLUNTEER GROUP SESSIONS

We have regular groups on Tuesday and Sunday from 2.00 pm - to 4.00 pm and Friday from 10.00 am - 12.00 pm so if you want to come and garden together, just turn up. If you are in our WhatsApp group, please also use this to check if people are in the garden for a session.

👥TEAM VOLUNTEER GROUP SESSIONS

With thanks to Julie for creating the wonderful flyer below, and for raising our profile in the Guildford Dragon » CLICK to read.

💰MEMBERSHIP 

The Rosamund Community Garden shares a membership system with Guildford Environmental Forum for joining info please email [email protected]

🔚AND FINALLY 😥

The high winds and rain last week were too much for our lovely arbour. We will organise a big job Sunday to cut it up and think about repurposing some of the sections. We'd like to keep that special space for outdoor activities, so we're planning a new structure to grow our climbers up.

Happy Gardening!