Back in October 2021 we held an inaugural composting workshop for our newly constructed bays beside our community garden. As follow-up, on Saturday 7 May Dan Priddle facilitated a second workshop for BBA gardeners and members of the local community to come along and learn the art of composting. What is composting? Composting happens when…Read more …

Each year we join community gardens across London and nationwide by joining in Capital Growth’s annual Good to Grow celebration. The aim of this event is to kickstart the growing season, so what better way to do this than with a seed sowing and sharing event?  And for this year’s BBA Good to Grow event…Read more …

At this time of year there’s a  lot of work going on at the BBA garden with the preparation of our raised beds for seed sowing and planting out. There’s a good deal of heavy lifting , earth  moving and sweating involved and at times the task list looks to be a daunting prospect. Yet…Read more …

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…Read more …

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…Read more …

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,…Read more …

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…Read more …

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…Read more …

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…Read more …

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…Read more …