Gardening club - week five

We had a great turn out at our last session - so we did loads of planting, watering, mulching, raking and seed-sowing! With autumn setting in, we did it just in time too - because now the plants will be able to settle into their new home before it gets properly cold. And that means we'll have a spectacular spring next year!

There's only one more gardening club session left this year - making jewellery and crafts using woodland materials with artist Penny Sadubin. So come along on Wednesday 17 October, 4pm-6pm and get crafty!

The highlight of the day was planting our new Family Apple Tree, which has three different apple varieties, all grafted onto one tree! The three types will flower at the same time, to make it easy for our local bees to cross-pollinate them, and make sure they produce plenty of fruit. The varieties are: Cox's Orange Pippin, Bramley and James Grieve.

Preparing the ground for the Family Apple Tree.

Digging for victory (well, apples)!

We also planted some mint and lemon verbena under the trees - which smell amazing!

Another verbena planted. Nice work!

Clearing the ground before seed-sowing.

A well-earned rest.

Hooray for Mabley Meadow's new gardeners!

Palas por Pistolas - update

You might remember that way back in 2010, we were lucky enough to be paid a visit by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes - who's been planting trees all over the world as part of his incredible Palas por Pistolas project.

The walnut tree we planted with him is settling into Mabley Green nicely, and now Pedro has listed all the trees on his new project website. Check it out here, and take a look at Mabley Green's tree here.

Make walnuts, not war.

Our tree-planting with Pedro Reyes on the 18th was amazing! The Hackney Tree Gang generously donated three hours out of their busy morning to get stuck in and keep an eagle eye on our planting technique. And everyone (including Pedro) helped dig the hole and get our new, 10-foot walnut tree safely planted.

Photo courtesy of Gareth Wilson.

Photo © Mark Blower

Pedro and his Palas Por Pistolas project are both totally inspiring, and it's an honour to have a tree planted in Mabley Green as part of it. AND, he brought one of the spades he made from melted-down guns with him all the way from Mexico, which he's generously donated to us.

Photo © Mark Blower

It's a beautiful object - if you'd like to see it (and even put it to good use on the meadow), come along to our next volunteering day on Saturday November 6th!