It’s been a sizzling summer so far, our garden is loving it and so are we!
During the last month or so we haven’t just been beavering away sowing, growing and tending the garden, we’ve also having great fun with a fantastic group of people.
Getting physical with friends
Back in June we held our first major event of the year, a community cook-up which launched the kitchen in our new shipping container and was part of London Food Month. Gemma and Anna from Cactus Kitchens were with us for the afternoon and gave a brilliant knife skills cookery demonstration, preparing veg for our food bloggers Will and Conor to cook up into a gourmet meal. It was a fantastic event on what was one of the hottest days in June, as you can see from this video made for us by Paolo Capelli of Business Soul.
But don’t worry if you missed this delicious day in our garden, there are many more to come. On Saturday 5 August Will and Conor will be back in our kitchen creating more culinary delights for an evening supper club. The aim of this event is to raise money for pathways to improve accessibility into the extended part of our community garden.
Unlevel ground to container kitchen
Last year through CCMAC we were able to secure funding form Lambeth’s levy on major events on Clapham Common to install pathways in half of the garden, making it a safe and welcoming place for everyone.
Pathways installed last year
To bring about this transformation to the rest of the garden we need to raise just over £5000 to extend the pathways and to help us achieve this goal we have set up a crowdfunding page on Spacehive. Lambeth Council have already pledged £795 to cover the VAT.
A Saturday’s rich pickings
Each Saturday we have a table outside our community garden on Windmill Drive with a plethora of produce from pea shoots to pickles. Probably the freshest veg you will find in Clapham! All of the money from the sale of this food will go towards our crowdfunding. And if you can’t male it on a Saturday then drop in to one of our gardening sessions on Wednesday evenings when we also harvest veg, which is plentiful right now. It’s the garden that keeps giving!
If you would like to help us reach our crowdfunding target of please follow this link to Spacehive to make a donation.
Our food growing group has come a long way since our humble beginnings with a few raised beds next to the cafe the Bandstand, and we continue to grow. One of our ambitions in the coming year is to establish regular gardening sessions for the people over 50 who want to get outdoors, have fun food growing and meet new people. Something you might like to get involved in? We are already running some trial sessions and the next of these in on Monday 14 August from 2 to 4pm – so come along and join us!
Bandstand Beds is run entirely by volunteers. If would like to get involved in helping to run this fantastic community food growing project in the heart of Clapham, pop in and see us the garden on Windmill Drive any Saturday morning from 10am and Wednesdays from 6 to 8pm, or drop an email to ccbandstandbeds@gmail.com