As the weather is slowly getting better and birdsong delights our visitors on our reserves, we have been busy as beavers  to kickstart our growing season at the community garden. We hosted a variety of activities for schools, community groups and families. Cherry blossoms, spring bulbs, and early vegetables attracted many visitors too, who were enjoying the garden during their visit to the shopping and leisure centre.
In late March we welcomed two large groups of school children at the Nene Wetlands. We had 90 children from Redwell Primary and another group of 90 children from Higham Junior School. Some of the groups had a visit to the Community Garden. We were observing the growth of plants and thinking about where the food we eat comes from. We looked at flowering plants and trees and distinguished between evergreen and deciduous trees. We also talked about how to look after plants. The children also enjoyed observing the mini pond, the bug hotel and of course the star of the show was the wormery! The year 5 groups also had pond dipping, guided walks around the lake and some activities at the Visitor Centre learning about gravel extraction and the impact of plastics and aquatic eco-systems. It was lovely to welcome the children at the Nene Wetlands and at the Community Garden.
In April half term we had a huge range of activities for families including drop in wildlife crafts, family bird song walks, pond dipping and mini-beasting, ceramic planter decorating and solitary bee box making. We were also very excited to host a couple of gardening related activities. Our Wild about gardens event was a busy drop-in activity day at the Visitor Centre. This event was to promote our new Family Gardening Club, and the children had a go at designing their own wildlife garden, they created their own mini-meadow and learnt about wildlife friendly planting. They could also decorate their own bug hotel. This event was kindly supported by Rushden Lakes, so we had free face painting too, with some great wildlife related designs. We had little butterflies, flowers, and even highland cattle!
Our Family Gardening Club Launch took place in the Community Garden, and we created wooden window boxes, planted seeds, and drilled them up in the garden fence too. This will be a monthly club from now on.
We had four community group visits in April, and we started our busy growing season in the community garden. With Growild Outreach group we had the first outdoor session of the year. We replanted some of our donated hellebores, weeded the raised beds and harvested some onions, rhubarbs, and rainbow chards. These were donated to local charity, Encompass. We also planted some pretty violas to make the space even more inviting for all visitors that enjoy the garden area. We were also very excited to see that our resident toad is still around! We were very lucky with the weather and managed to have a successful morning with loads of tasks done-and not a drop of rain in sight! At a later visit in April the group created and decorated some wooden planters, these are on display now at the garden area. Miraculously during this session we had plenty of sunshine again!
Cando Cooperative Care had a busy afternoon at their very first outdoors visit of the year. The weather was kind to us and on a sunny afternoon we created wooden planters that they decorated, and planted some nasturtiums and calendulas. These are now drilled up on the fence at the garden and they will make a very colourful display once the first flowers appear.
One of the large, raised beds had been filled up too, and some pumpkin seedlings that the group sown earlier in March had been re-potted, as they are growing at a fast pace. At the end of the session, we sang happy birthday to one of our regular visitors and Cando client, Mary, who bought us some yummy cupcakes.
The Nene Wetlands team, staff and volunteers are also invited to the Cando 10th Anniversary celebrations on a Sunday afternoon in May. They have been providing an excellent service to their clients in the last decade, and we will be happy to join them and celebrate their success.
We are preparing for a very exciting May, when some works will take place at the garden area, and our education shed, and the outdoors cooking station will be installed. Moulton College are going to be back too, and the students and their tutors will be erecting a pergola, and a picnic bench for the garden. More community group visits are booked in too, and the next family gardening club will be on Saturday 18th May from 10.30am till 12pm. Dates for future gardening clubs are Saturdays 1st June, 13th July, 10th August and 7th September- to find out more information and to book on to our events please visit here.
Once the cooking station and all our outdoors equipment are ready, we will plan our family cooking sessions with Groundwork Northants as part of the Grow, Cook, Eat programme.
