Sandon Mount Allotment & Community Gardens

On the closing day for applications here’s another entry for the St Luke’s CARES Community Awards, submitted by Catherine Bennett for Hunslet Carr Residents Association allotment project. For details of how YOUR community group can enter please click here. The deadline for entries is 5pm today (28 February 2018).

Hunslet Carr Residents Association was officially formed in December 2013 and along with Councillors and funding secured from various sources they were able to transform through Groundwork’s the run down overgrown tipping ground that is now the allotment. Over a year and a half the site was transformed and the community asked Hunslet Carr Primary School to be become partners and as they had no green space of their own gratefully accepted.

The area gives a green gardening and wildlife space to local children and residents of Hunslet Carr, inspiring green fingers in the young whilst allowing the adults to pass on their experience of gardening.

Tuesday and Thursday afternoons (weather permitting) planting (in season) weeding, watering, exploring, interacting, probing, building and just enjoying the fresh air young and old alike are on site.

A child never seeing a frog was the inspiration to create a frog pond from an old stone sink luckily within the first year we had frog spawn, then seven frogs. Making fairy doors from lollipops sticks is maybe why the fairies came to live in our wildflower garden in the willow dome and tunnel, can you smell them? the children can.

We hold Easter egg hunts with everyone actively helping each other to solve the clues and sharing their chocolate wins.

Our Scarecrow workshops involve lots of straw and whole families along with local residents creating huge look alike scarecrows, Uncle George stood proud in the outdoor classroom for months until he became waterlogged he now sits in the shed awaiting the warmer weather.

We hope to create a wildlife dipping pond and fruit orchard in the top plot over the next year, with the help and support of local businesses this project has already been started.

We would like each child to plant a sunflower seed to be planted out en-mass in the top plot: South of Hunslet not France! We need 451 seeds, one for each child in school and pumpkin seeds, we were short this year as some of our produce rotted off but carving took place in school with lots of sticky children.

Funding would be used to buy seeds, compost and pots so the children could take the seedlings home and grow them on until large enough to plant out. Seeds would then be collected at harvest each year and the process would evolve again year after year.

Adventure and imagination knows no bounds and both young and old embrace activities on site with vigour encouraging everyone to get involved and enjoy.

 

This post was written by Catherine Bennett using our Create an article for South Leeds Life page.