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Mastering mushrooms
At Bandstand Beds we’re always looking to widen the range of produce we can cultivate and so on a sunny Saturday last week we gathered learn how to grow oyster mushrooms. What are oyster mushrooms and what’s the challenge? Oyster mushrooms are large fan shaped fungi. In the wild they are usually found in wooded…
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Hugelkultur on the Common
By the children’s playground on Clapham Common, near The Spinney, there are three large plane trees. In the last few years, the area beneath them has been covered in bark and designated for wildlife. As the bark breaks down into a growing medium and seeds blow in on the wind, the area is slowly springing…
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February pruning
Dreary, drizzly, and destined to rain with a 90% certainty, Saturday morning was not the most inspiring prospect to be outdoors. Nevertheless, a group of hardy and curious Bandstand Beds members assembled in the garden, eager to learn the dos-and-don’ts of pruning. We were greeted by the enchanting New Zealand accent of our facilitator Patrick,…
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Put to bed
Each year when we hold our community feast in September you could easily think our garden is then put to bed, but this is certainly not the case. With the arrival of autumn we begin turning our thoughts to next year’s growing season, planting onions, shallots, garlic and broad beans ready to harvest from around…
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Composting workshop
When we throw food waste away, it can be easy to not think about where it goes. Unlike the single-use plastic we’re all wary of, we know that organic waste will decompose. However, if put into landfill this waste will break down anaerobically, as the weight and compression of the other rubbish starves the decomposition…
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Funtastic feast!
Since Bandstand Beds began in 2013 we’ve held a community feast each autumn to celebrate our growing season’s harvest. Sadly, due to Covid this wasn’t possible last year. But on a brighter note, one of the good things to come out of Covid has been the closure of Clapham Common’s Windmill Drive, the road beside…
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Waste not!
When I first became involved with Bandstand Beds we shared an aim with Lambeth Council to create a composting site on Clapham Common, in the area known then as ‘the dump’. Part of this is now the site of BBA’s community garden on Windmill Drive. Over the years masses of green waste left at the…
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Blossom time
Spring is such a wonderful season, the time when everything in the garden bursts back into life. And although this cold April has slowed things down in the garden it’s wonderful to now see everything burgeoning, especially the fruit trees in blossom. A sure sign that it’s time to start some serious gardening! On Saturday…
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What a year!
This has been an incredibly difficult year and many people have found great solace in gardening. This is certainly true for those of our members who have managed to get outdoors with their hands in the dirt at our wonderful growing space on Clapham Common. Of course, everyone’s experience is different, so we asked our…
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Keeping growing
To say this has been a difficult year would be an understatement, but despite all the challenges our garden has manged to keep ticking along. Back in March, just as we were preparing for the growing season ahead, suddenly everything came to a halt. Covid-19 lockdown kicked in! This meant cancelling all our planned events…