Chapel Community Garden News

Here at the Chapel Project in Ash Vale, we are delighted to have been given an amazing opportunity to improve our community garden. Thank you so much to Taylor Wimpey for selecting us as winners of Taylor Wimpey West London's Willow Green Community Chest! We are busy spending the funding wisely and well for the benefit of the local community.

We are very blessed to have a lovely volunteer who is studying horticulture, and she has given us valuable advice on growing seasonal edibles for the community, helped to plan the planting, as well as rolling up her sleeves and getting stuck in! We have improved the soil with compost and manure, and planted lots of edibles.

This week, the volunteers  have added courgettes, beans, pumpkins and strawberries. We will soon be adding perennial edibles too, with 2 fruit trees and some currants being added to our growing mini-orchard, where we plant a tree (or more) each year to help towards improving our carbon footprint as well as growing fruit to eat. The remainder of the funds we have dedicated to our bee-friendly flower beds at the front of the Chapel. Today we planted 4 different varieties of well-established pulmonaria (lungwort) for the bees, 4 beautiful roses, and some borage seeds, marigold seeds and oxeye daisies which will soon add colour and attract both butterflies and bees.

We are looking forward to the beautiful flowers and to harvesting edibles for the foodbank and community fridge, and we know that the Chapel Kids (toddler group) and Picnic and Play (summer scheme) families will have fun watering all the plants and watching them grow. Huge thanks to everyone who nominated us, and to Taylow Wimpey for your wonderful support!