Exciting Find at North Hall

Hope you are all keeping well and safe and finding plenty of distractions to pass these difficult wet, cold, winter weeks. Hopefully Spring is just around the corner. We have been very busy in the woodland at North Hall over the last couple of months, producing over fifty bundles of bean poles and pea sticks for the village. As well as this, we have coppiced some of the unusable Hazel and Willow to make some dead hedges that will help support wildlife in the woodland.

Whilst having a wander around this morning, taking a look at how the wild flowers are progressing, we were very pleased to see that the Primroses are poking through and about to come into flower, also the Cowslips in the wild flower meadow are pushing through and starting to bud up along with the Daffodils. The whole area should look a picture over the next few weeks and make us feel that better times are ahead.

However, the most exciting find is growing on two of our fruit trees. Any idea what this could be? It is Mistletoe. When you are next down at North Hall, take a wander through the fruit trees and see if you can find the two sprigs that have started growing. We are hopeful now it has got a hold it will spread to other trees. Normally it is very difficult to get Mistletoe to grow on any trees, why it has taken a hold on our fruit trees we have no idea. We have tried many times ourselves without success.

Membership

During March, we will be distributing our Membership Renewal flyer to every house in the village as we think there are a lot of new people who may be interested in supporting us. As we did not send any renewals out last year, we have decided to try and explain a lot more about the LCGI i.e. who we are, what we do and how people can help us. We are going to try and encourage as many people as possible to pay directly into our Bank.

Work Parties

Unfortunately, at the present time, we obviously cannot hold any work parties or litter picking mornings, however, as soon as we feel it is safe to do so, we will set out a timetable for the rest of the year.

Graham Moore

Happy Christmas to all our Members

The Committee of the Loxwood Community Gardens Initiative would like to wish all of our members a happy and safe Christmas. It has been a very strange and difficult year for all, obviously we have not been able to have our regular planned work parties, however, we have managed to keep on top of the upkeep of the Diamond Jubilee Garden and the Telephone Box. Once Spring arrives, we will start to spend some time in both areas to bring them up to scratch.

Very soon after Christmas and the New Year we will start to coppice the hazel woodland at North Hall. Nearer the time I will be sending out an email to all our members to see if anyone would like bundles of bean poles and pea sticks. Whilst we are working in the woodland, we will try to clear a lot of the brambles that seem to appear every year. There is very little to do in the orchard at the moment as we did spend a couple of days pruning all the trees and planting some new daffodils that will hopefully naturalise in the woodland.

We are looking forward to sometime next year when we will be able to get together and carry on with our work parties, our litter picking days and even a bbq. If we are able, we will be opening Spy Farm garden again this year around about rose time to raise some funds for our adopted charity, Halow, who desperately need funds to support local youngsters.

Best wishes to you all, hope you all have a good Christmas and a happy new year.

Jubilee Garden Work Party

We will be holding a work party in the Jubilee Garden on Saturday 24th October when we will be raking up the fallen leaves, weeding and giving the garden a good general tidy up ready for the winter.

Please bring along rakes and equipment for weeding. I will supply the tonne bags to collect the leaves.

Normal start time of 9.30am as long as the weather is fine.

Annual Update

Due to our current circumstances, we are not holding our Annual AGM or BBQ.  We would like to take this opportunity to update our members on what has been happening over the last year and details of our new feature in the Jubilee Garden.

Starting with our new feature, you will see a picture on Flickr of our Ice Cream Stall that has specifically been designed so that the preschool children and the young children of the village can use their imagination in their play.  Our thanks go to the Manufacturer of this feature, Mr Peter Winney.

Since our last AGM we have achieved lots of good work on our various community garden areas.  In the Jubilee Garden we have produced a new sign, held a very successful BBQ, hosted a litter picking day for the village and very recently we have completed a major cutback of many of the shrubs that have become rather overgrown.

At North Hall, we have again cleared another part of the overgrown Hazel coppice and laid another 15 metres of traditional hedging as well as producing over 40 bundles of bean poles and pea sticks for our members.  This Autumn we hope to complete the hedging as well as our last area of regeneration of the woodland.

We had plans to repaint the Telephone Box by the village shop, inside and out, however, our current situation is making this rather difficult.  Hopefully we might get this completed before the end of the Summer.

Finally, our appeal for an Auditor has been successful and one of our members has stepped up and offered to complete this task for us on an annual basis.

Thank you for all your support during the year, maybe next year we will be getting back to normal when we can hold our BBQ and hopefully increase our membership in the village.

Graham

LOCK DOWN WORK PARTY

On Tuesday morning this week, we decided to organise a small, elite group of gardeners to work in the Jubilee Garden as the whole area had obviously become a little overgrown and very untidy.  To ensure we all could work safely, we made sure we worked in different parts of the garden. Over the period of a couple of hours we made a significant difference. The garden now looks much more loved.

Sometime in the last two or so weeks, the garden has been invaded by, what we are pretty certain is a local Badger, who has decided to dig up two of the logs in the log circle, undermine an old tree stump, as well as wrecking a log pile.  We now understand the probable cause as we have found many Stag Beetle Larvae underneath the logs.  We believe that is the reason for the Badger invasion.  Whilst replacing some of the old, rotten logs, we discovered many other Stag Beetle Larvae as well as many Slow Worms, which is good news for the environment.

One of the raised beds has been planted with salad crops, as well as a few small vegetables.  Please feel free to help yourselves once these have matured.

When you are walking around the village, do take a look at the wild flower meadow at North Hall which is starting to look very pretty with Daisies, Campions, Ragged Robin, Buttercups and Bugle.  Well worth a wander down to take a look.

Unfortunately we have decided to postpone the Annual BBQ in the Jubilee Garden on 3 July.  We will look to see if its possible to organise it later in the summer.  Obviously our planned work parties will not take place, however, we will endeavour to maintain the garden, using small groups of our helpers.

Annual Membership/Update

Hope you are all keeping well in these difficult times.  I am sure all your gardens are looking immaculate, unfortunately, we will not be having any work parties in the near future.   Over the next few weeks Gina and I will try to tidy up and plant up the raised beds in the Jubilee Garden to ensure they are looking reasonable for the summer with some salad crops in the raised beds.  Whilst we are working in the Jubilee Garden we will ensure that the gate is closed to prevent people wandering in.

Many thanks to all of you who have renewed your Annual Membership, this is much appreciated.  If you haven’t as yet and wish to do so we ask for a minimum of £10 per family and £5 per single person.  Our Bank details are

Lloyds TSB      Sort Code 30 94 41   Account 39687060    Ref: your surname

Whilst you are taking your hour’s exercise, do take a look in the orchard and woodland at North Hall, the fruit trees are blossoming beautifully.  Hopefully we will get a good crop this year.  Also, the wildflower meadow and woodland are looking spectacular with Bluebells, Cowslips, Primroses and Celandines.  Well worth a visit.

The other area that will be new to all of us this Spring is our recently opened footpath, Knepp Lane, which is now a picture with an avenue of Bluebells.  The ground is now much drier and well worth including in your daily walk.

Finally, it is our intention to repaint the Telephone Box in the village, however, for obvious reasons we are not sure if this will happen this year.

At the moment we have left 3 July free for our Annual BBQ, however, we think this may have to be cancelled or postponed till later in the year.

Keep Safe

Graham

 

Bonfire

A lot of work has been carried out in the woodland at North Hall over the last two to three weeks.  We have now coppiced a large area providing bean poles and pea sticks for everybody who has requested them in the village.  The traditional hedge laying is going very well and we expect to finish the length of hedge that we had planned for this year in the next couple of weeks or so.  The whole woodland area has become overgrown with brambles, we are in the process of tackling this as they have taken over the paths and smothered many of the shrubs and trees.  This will be an ongoing issue that we will have to deal with on a regular basis.

On Saturday 25th January our very dedicated volunteers turned out for the highlight of their year, which is a bonfire.  Over a couple of hours we managed to burn all the residue rubbish from the hedge laying and from previous clearance work.  As well as burning some of the rubbish we ensure that we help the wildlife by making dead hedges in various areas that provide protection for birds and insects.

Do take a look at a few pictures on Flickr of the workers.

Our next work party will be Sunday 23rd February when we will probably be having another bonfire.

Happy New Year.

We would like to wish all of our members a happy and prosperous  New Year.  Over the next few weeks we will be continuing the laying of the traditional hedge along our boundary at North Hall.  This will result in something most of our members look forward to, our clearing up bonfires.  This will happen at our next work party that will take place on Saturday 25th January at North Hall starting at 9.30 am.  Please bring saws and clippers and wear very old clothes as we all know what normally happens with all the sparks.

The other very important event will be the coppicing of the hazel to produce bean poles and pea sticks. As in previous years we will be supplying bean poles in bundles of 12 and pea sticks in bundles of approx 25, completely free to our LCGI members.  These will be available sometime in the next few weeks, if you would like some of these please let me know how many bundles of each you would like and I will organise this.

Graham Moore

 

Update on 2020 Diary

Do take a look at our 2020 Diary page.  You will find a list of all our Work Party Dates and the venues, however, we will always confirm venues a few days before the actual event as these are subject to change depending on our requirements.

We have also noted our two village litter picking mornings when we will encourage as many people as possible to join us to ensure the village is looking neat and tidy.

The other two important events are also noted, the Village Fete on 6 June and our annual Bbq, Friday 3 July.

Once Christmas is over we will be starting work at North Hall with hedge laying to carry on the good work that Keith started a couple of years ago, as well as our traditional coppicing to provide Bean poles and Pea sticks for the village.  We will be sending out an email sometime in January to give you the opportunity to put  your order in for the number you require.

We would like to wish all our members and supporters a Happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Litter Picking Morning

On Sunday 13th October The Loxwood Community Garden Initiative in conjunction with The Loxwood Society will be holding another litter picking morning to ensure that our village is looking at it’s best for the winter.  We will meet in The Diamond Jubilee Community Garden at 9.30 am, we will supply the litter pickers, hi-viz jackets and rubbish bags. Please come armed with your own gloves.

We will allocate everybody to a certain area of the village, working in pairs or trios depending on the number of people who turn out to support us.  This litter picking event replaces our normal work party.  Our next work party will take place on Saturday 16th November when we will be raking up leaves and giving the Jubilee Garden a good tidy before winter sets in.

Hopefully see many of you on Sunday 13th.