The week before the open day the temperature had dropped by about 15 degrees, so there was some nervousness as to whether or not anyone was going to turn out.
And of course they did, because the gardens involved put on a great event, each and every one!
We visited gardens in the east and the north, starting with St Dunstan’s primary school in Moston, run by Marina and gang, who were making seed bombs and cress caterpillars with the kids who use the garden as an outdoor classroom.
Next was the Greenfingers group at the Chatterbox project in Charlestown – the polytunnel was a hive of activity when we turned up, and Donna Ogden, a youth worker at the project, was keeping the pace fast with all the jobs that needed doing.
Vicky and Emma who work on the garden next to the Church of the Apostles in Miles Platting had the ingenious idea of hiring in a climbing wall, to bribe the local kids into doing some work on the garden. By the tie we arrived they’d completely cleared a back corner and revealed an amazing keyhole bed design marked out in tiles. After soup and amazing cake, we reluctantly moved on, and made our way into the Northern Quarter, felling decidedly un-hip. It turns out the coolest thing in the NQ is the garden cared for by about 9 regular volunteers known as Northern Quarter Greening. They spent the morning clearing out beds, building a compost bin and handing out 200 bags of free seeds to passers-by. We wandered down to the Piccadilly Basin cap park where they lok after another group of raised beds surrounded by converted mill buildings. They had so much help on the day, they actually finished 2 hours early – what a coup!
For photos from all the gardens that participated, have a look at our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/kindlingtrust
Our 22 gardens were amongst over 300 nationally which opened up – WELL DONE EVERYONE FOR ALL YOUR HARD WORK!!! You did a great job!