Mayor of Ipswich Councillor David Hale and celebrity gardener Bob Flowerdew officially opened the People’s Community Garden on Saturday 18 October. Guests gathered under the autumn sunshine to hear Town & Bridge Project Manager Julie Stokes give her welcome speech outlining the history of the project, before the Mayor cut the ribbon and Bob Flowerdew voiced his support for the project.
This was followed by lunch, supplied by Super Catering, at which guests could buy a special community garden mug for their soup. Samboomba samba band kept the day upbeat as members of the public arrived to help plant up the permaculture orchard with varieties of apple and other fruit native to Suffolk and East Anglia. The orchard trees were kindly funded by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), and Alison Findlay, RHS Regional Campaigner for School Gardening Advisor, East of England, attended the event to see how far we had got with the project. Miranda McCoy from the Big Lottery Fund, our main funder, enthusiastically got involved in planting trees, while ITV Anglia filmed the proceedings.
Professional storyteller John Row entertained children with his tales, while Kathy Bole wandered around impressing visitors with Havoc, her magnificent owl. Tea, coffee and seasonal homemade cakes were in abundant supply, and unusual varieties of apple donated by Hemingstone fruit farm and Crown Nursery added flavour to the day. Local companies James White Drinks and Aspall Cider had donated juice and cider for our tombola, which helped raised funds for more plants for the garden. Our thanks go out to everyone who helped make the day a success, particularly Seager employees who helped set up, Julie’s Keep on Rockin singers who “ladied” the cake stand, Becky, Manny & Jackie on tombola, and the garden’s regular volunteers who not only helped on the day but turned up on Friday for final preparations.
We now have a regular group of about 10 volunteers who come along each Monday to help out. They did a blitz weed of the veggie plots before the event, and have also cultivated plots for onion sets, broad beans and other crops, including green manure, and put in spring bulbs around the cabin. It’s turning out to be a fun session, and volunteers are enjoying getting to know each other and working together. They make a valuable contribution.
The People’s Community Garden
Newsletter Autumn 2008
Email for a newsletter: susannah.robirosa@ipswich-cvs.org.uk