Spring Update

2 days ago
3 min read

If you've never seen a slime mould close up before then you could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a pair of golfballs sitting on the tee waiting to be struck down the fairway! However, these are the strange and wonderful fruiting bodies of slime mould found at the garden and photographed by local photographer and friend of Farncombe Community Garden, David Hughes. If you want to see just how small they are, and some fantastic aerial shots of the garden taken by David then do look at the photo gallery at the end of the newsletter. David also kindly donated some of his wonderful wildlife photos to be used on the display board at Binscombe Medical Centre - do check out his website.

David's photographs are a fantastic reminder of how much wildlife is alongside us at the garden. We would love to document this and so have set up a Project on the app i Naturalist. If you would like to help us with this then all you need to do is download the free app and upload photos of wildlife (both plants and animals) you see at the garden to our project page (which is called Farncombe Community Garden, of course!) The more the merrier!

Here are some important updates about events at the garden this Spring

Free Yoga - day change

Every month there is free yoga for everyone which is kindly offered by an experienced yoga instructor. Previously it was on a Wednesday but the day has changed to the second Tuesday of every month between 10 and 11am. Bring your own mat if you have one, but mats will be provided if needed. The sessions can operate in all weathers as they will be outside when the weather is good (wear sunblock!) and in the lodge if it is too cold or damp for outdoor yoga.

Summer evening open sessions

With the lighter evenings, now is the time for evening open sessions! These will be held from 6 -7.30 pm on the following Wednesday evenings:

6th May

3rd June

1st July

12th August

As with all open sessions, simply turn up to have a look around, spend time in the garden or to join in the gardening!

Open Day

On Saturday 27th June from 10-12 noon, we will be holding our annual open day. This will replace our usual open session that morning and will be to celebrate all that we have achieved, and in particular to mark the opening of our new boardwalk down to the pond. We are very grateful to Councillor Penny Rivers who helped us secure the funding for this project, which has really opened up the pond to make it accessible for all. Penny will be formally opening the boardwalk at 10.30am so do join us for that.

As always on our open days there will be tours of the garden, plenty of refreshments and also plants for sale. It will be very family-friendly so please bring children along - they always seem to relish the secure and open space that we have at the garden. We would ask you not to bring dogs please (other than assistance dogs) as not everyone finds dogs easy to be around.

Photos of the pond and our new boardwalk - this area of the garden is really taking shape!

Trustee changes

The end of March saw one of our Trustees, Deepa Craig, complete her time in this role and as part of the management team. Deepa will still be a lead volunteer at open sessions, but her full time work means she needs to step back from these responsibilities. We are extremely grateful to Deepa for all the hard work she has put in since joining the team at the very earliest stage. She particularly led on fund raising and was responsible for so many of our successful grant applications - it is no exaggeration to say that the garden would not be the stunning sight it is today without Deepa!

Our board of Trustees remains strong, however, as we are delighted to welcome two new Trustees, Philip Pearson and Ellen Rinttila. Both have been volunteering at the garden for a while and they are a fantastic addition to the team.