Warren Carter

The chalk floor on the temporary structure is finished thanks to hard labour and a pounder. The A frame is being built and the support struts will be up soon. The council are going to put up a new fence at the back and to save the council money we are moving along the back line, bashing out old concrete posts, removing tangled fencing, tree stumps, rubbish, old shoes, glass and cow bones. The weather continues to be kind to… Read More »FLATTENING AND BASHING

Week two after the Great Fire of Moulsecoomb Forest Garden and the base of the temporary shed is almost ready thanks to hardcore volunteers, school pupils and help last Sunday from Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue . Thank God or climate change or just sheer luck but the weathers been so mild we’re still picking salad and raspberries and working in t-shirts, so we wouldn’t have had to hide in our shed yet from the rain, cold and snow. But… Read More »FLOOR TAKES SHAPE

The clear up is over and people have started work on our temporary structure. We need to put something up quick to have somewhere dry and warm before the weather turns cold. Unfortunately our half built rammed chalk food larder (see top picture) has had to be buried alive while people pick axed and flattened a large area of chalk next to the old shed. We laid down scaff board for supporting walls while we try to even up the… Read More »SLOWLY RISING FROM THE ASHES

On a drizzly November day we set about clearing up what was left of our shed. Burnt timber, twisted metal roofing, melted plastic, cracked cups…it had to be sorted to be burnt, recycled, sold to the scrappy and taken to the tip. But what a response! All the pupils and teachers from Springboard , pupils and staff from ACE, regular and new volunteers, pupils from the past, all got stuck in to make light of the work. Daisy dished up… Read More »CLEAN UP FRENZY

Thanks to all the messages of support; moral, financial and physical. Here’s a list of some of the things that we need replacing. Plates, knifes, forks, spoons, bowls, mugs, big pans, frying pans, cast iron pans, tins for storing tea, coffee, sugar and biscuits, cafeteria, teapot, baking trays, serving spoons and ladle, cheese grater, colander, measuring jugs, potato masher. Kettle for fire, wood burning stove, mirror.

On Thursday night our allotment shed was burnt to the ground. The fire was so fierce that neighbours called the fire brigade who had to stumble through woodland to put out the blaze and stop our Saxon roundhouse from also catching fire. You might get the wrong impression, when you think of a garden shed storing a few tools and a couple of old flowerpots. This was a lot more than a shed, it was what some youngsters called our… Read More »BURNT TO THE GROUND

People from the Migrant English Project http://mepbrighton.com/ visited the garden during the last hot day of the year and cooked various bread, soup and enjoyed the sunshine. Listen to a radio programme about the day http://www.refugeeradio.org.uk/audio/20110910_refrad78forest.mp3

Polish community workers. Chinese teachers. Volunteers from Brazil to Taiwan, South Korea to Central Europe. The forest garden is a United Nations melting pot. For the past three years Concordia have been working with us and Moulsecoomb Primary School. Francesca Corney explained: “Concordia is a charity committed to international volunteering as a means to promoting intercultural understanding and peace. For nearly 70 years we have provided volunteering and work opportunities overseas and here in the UK. Every year we run… Read More »MELTING POT

After last year’s success we decided to run two summer holiday schemes for Moulsecoomb kids. A chance for them to make camps, carve wood, try out some bushcraft, cook over fires, stuff their faces with marshmallows and generally just enjoy being outside. But we haven’t yet bitten the bullet and let people camp overnight! Recently I did a bit of that overnight camping where all the children were having a brilliant, pretty much unsupervised, time outdoors – just like the… Read More »FOREST GARDEN SUMMER CAMP