Speed Greening: Winter Garden Day at Cordwainers Garden

Despite a few blustery showers to begin with, we were lucky with another sunny day for garden volunteering down at Cordwainers Garden. Teams of people got stuck in with various different tasks including bagging up soil, clearing and planting a new bed, cutting kindling with an axe, weeding rogue areas, collecting leaves for leafmould, patching up the shed and clearing out and re-arranging the composting corner. Fuelled by an almost continuous supply of tea from the storm-kettle (powered by wood) and a delicious spread from Cafe Morningside we got a huge amount done. We even dug up and relocated an enormous Calla Lily which had planted itself rather annoyingly in the dye bed.  It was great to have a mix of old and new faces at the garden, to share some of the heavy lifting and chat about Starwars and science fiction (!) over lunch. Thanks to all our hardworking volunteers, the garden has been given a new lease of life as it braces itself for the cold months ahead.

First volunteer of the day, a huge worm

The rains clears and the sun comes out to warm us up

Duncan gets to work on patching up the pallet shed

Emma and Shamima clearing the ground and planting up a new area in the front garden

Jane weeding and tidying the wildlife bed and Jonathan bagging up our fresh compost

Star of the day, the storm kettle

Delicious spread made by Cafe Morningside

Bags of fresh compost for each bed, Christmas has come early!

Having a break and filling up with lots of food

Lots of mmmm sounds

Cutting up dry woody thing for storm kettle kindling

Last teabreak of the day!

This Winter Garden Volunteer Day was organised by Cordwainers Grow as part of our Speed Greening project supported by Team London.

Meadow flower dyeing

After spending multiple occasions wading through the wildflowers in London Fields in the pouring rain we finally put our harvest to good use this weekend. We held a pop-up dye workshop between the park and Broadway Market catching people reveling in the glorious sunshine that Saturday brought. We showed people an ancient Japanese technique for natural dyeing called shibori where you use folding, clamping, twisting and other creative means to create a pattern. (Tie-dying is a type of shibori). We created a dye vat using the flowers from the meadow, mostly coreopsis and zinnias. 

Naturally dyed bunting

The dye vat with coreopsis and zinnia meadown flowers

Some shibori creations from the day drying in the sunshine

Growing seeds of freedom

From seed to bean and to seed again.... the runner beans I am growing for the London Freedom Seedbank are still going strong as we get close to the end of Summer.

Roof gardening at HOL, Hackney

Navigating the City

Following discussions at last nights ‘Navigating the Future City’ – the fourth installment from the Urban Research Unit, a project by Futurecity and Grimshaw Architects, i got to thinking about the idea of placemaking in a city like London. A few different ideas were discussed but an underlying theme was centred around developing and creating spaces for people – let’s call it active placemaking versus enabling a space or open area to be experienced and enjoyed at the discretion of the user i.e. passive placemaking. Whilst discussing the development plans for Earls Court featuring 4 villages and a high street the panel digressed into what is key in forming a successful high street which offers more than a bookies, a pound shop and a hairdresser. Kingsland Road in Dalston and Hackney were mentioned as places where the high street has managed to retain its independence in terms of small shops, cafes and local businesses and developed creative outlets without the need for chain stores lacking in personality. When posing the question of how this seemingly organic growth can be reflected in other developments it is hard to compare the two. On the one hand you have a place with a strong history of community and a rising number of socially minded artists in contrast to a developer who has a given site to develop and a brief to be followed. When looking at Earls Court the developments focus is and has to be on the transport hub. It has been seen across London that transport centres are now being regenerated around the city with a large emphasis on creating generous public realm – Kings Cross is one example – the importance still has to be focused on getting people from A to B as efficiently as possible. The public space is an add on. It is also a finite project with a start, an end, and a criteria to fill and a service – in this case transport – to be provided. Therefore, there is not the opportunity for it to grow, develop and be reinvented in the same way that pockets, niches and corners of the city have been regenerated in boroughs like Hackney. So when returning to the question of how new planned developments can mirror the successes of others that have just happened an element of trust has to be given to the end users in dictating how a space can be used. Successful placemaking which is best suited to its end user is achieved by slowly creating spaces which can adapt over time when and as is needed. So in looking at how these new transport hubs can contribute to diverse public areas for the people of the city, perhaps the developer can concentrate on the main transport and infrastructure of the site  and then create a blank canvas for local communities to develop over time. This will encourage local businesses to occupy retail units giving individuality to the site and might encourage people to use the space in a different way. And if you put something there that isn’t as sterile and uninspiring as your average Starbucks and M&S  maybe we can change the ‘get in and get out’ attitude that we have towards travelling in the city.

http://www.urbanresearchunit.com/events/

Cordwainders Volunteer Day

Come and join us at Cordwainers for a day of garden fun.......