Do you want to grow your own food but have no garden?

Ashtead Garden Share aims to put people who have spare garden space in touch with people who want to grow their own food. The idea is very simple – people with gardens they cannot manage, offer to share them with people who would like to grow food but have nowhere to grow.

The grower gets a free allotment, and the owner gets a share of the tasty produce grown in their garden.

Come along to Ashtead Park Garden Centre on Wednesday 16th June between 6 and 8pm and ask us all about Garden Sharing! Participate in the FREE RAFFLE - prizes on show at this event.  There will also be local honey for sale and a honey bee expert there who would love to chat to you about bees and bee hosting. Don’t know what bee hosting is? Come along and find out!

We hope to see you there!

Derek Smith

Did you know that 1/3 of your household waste can be composted? Composting is a natural process that transforms your kitchen and garden waste into valuable and nutrient rich food for your garden, for free.  Anyone with outside space can compost at home, and it’s easy to make and use.

All you need to do is provide the right ingredients and let nature do the rest.  The Surrey Waste Partnership (which is made up of Surrey County Council and the 11 district and borough councils in the county) is offering home composting bins at fantastic prices, starting from £14.00 (RRP £39.00), to encourage more residents to compost at home.

Even if you do compost already, there may be a few extra things you could put in. For example: empty cereal packets and egg boxes; fruit scraps and vegetable peelings; tea bags and coffee grounds; vacuum bag contents and even vegetarian pet bedding, are in fact great ingredients to make compost. Mix this in with garden waste such as old flowers and nettles; wood chippings and straw; twigs and dried leaves, and you have the perfect recipe. When it is finished the compost will be like a fine soil, ready to use.

Use it on your flower beds and vegetable plots, patio planters, hanging baskets and even window boxes.  Compost keeps your plants growing healthily, by improving soil structure and fertility, maintaining moisture levels and keeping your soil’s PH balance in place.

Composting is good for the environment.  By putting less household waste out for collection, less energy is required as there are fewer vehicle movements, waste handling and industrial processes involved, and less waste going to landfill.  And composting means you are putting carbon back into the soil, making it more fertile and helping tackle climate change too.

Spring into composting at home and make the most of the waste you throw away.

To buy a bin or get more advice on how to turn your table scraps and garden waste into compost, visit www.surreycc.gov.uk/getcomposting or call 0844 571 4444.

It is held in the school playground.  You can buy fruit, vegetables, annuals and perennials at the sale.

We will have some plants for sale and information about Transition Ashtead Garden Share.

Come for a chat and a browse!

Come and ask us about Garden Sharing at Ashtead Park Garden Centre, on Saturday 1st May, 12-4pm

Have you got a large garden with space to spare?

Do you want to grow your own food but have no garden?

Ashtead Garden Share aims to put people who have spare garden space in touch with people who want to grow their own food. The idea is very simple – people with gardens they cannot manage, offer to share them with people who would like to grow food but have nowhere to grow.

The grower gets a free allotment, and the owner gets a share of the tasty produce grown in their garden.

Come along to Ashtead Park Garden Centre on May 1st and ask us all about Garden Sharing!

We hope to see you there!

phone: Derek Smith on 01372 378914  for more details

Garden Share Scheme

The idea is that anyone who has a garden with space to spare and who doesn’t have the time or energy to use it all but would like to see the land put to good growing use, can be ‘matched’ with someone who doesn’t have a garden or space to grow any vegetables.

We already have the offer a piece of land which will be suitable for at least a couple of gardeners! If you want to grow vegetables this year please register with us for the opportunity to get gardening. For novice vegetable growers, don’t worry there are plenty of enthusiastic gardeners in the Transition Group who would be delighted to help with advice. And don’t forget the garden owner may well have grown veggies in the past but can’t manage to now, and they could be full of great advice and tips for successful growing.

There is much more information in the Guidance Notes which should answer any questions you have about the scheme. If you want to register either fill in the Gardener Registration form or Garden Owner Registration form. We have included a Garden Share Conditions for the matched owners and gardeners to agree beforehand. We suggest that there is an initial meeting between the parties to discuss the conditions and to see whether you think it will work for both of you as don’t forget this is a commitment on both sides.

If you have any further questions or want to send in completed forms please email foodgroup@ transitionashtead.org.uk or give Derek Smith our Secretary a ring on 01372 378914.

Community Garden

Potential community garden!

We think that a community garden in Ashtead would be a great project. It would be an opportunity for people without gardens or not enough land get out, meet other like minded souls and ‘till the soil’ plus of the great benefit of fresh fruit and veggies.

The exact way that the community garden will work will be up to the group, but we think the plot could be divided into small plots, or everyone can garden the whole plot – either way produce can be divided or bartered between the group.

We are currently negotiating with a land-owner about the possibility of using some land for a small community garden or “multiple garden share” but if you know of a suitable site for a community garden, we’d love to hear from you. We are actively seeking vegetable experts who can give advice to our novice gardeners.

Other Aims

The Food Group wants to promote growing and buying local produce and also encouraging biodiversity by:

• Let the grass verges grow long which is beneficial to wildlife
• Planting more trees and hedges
• Finding sites for bee keeping

If you would like to get involved with The Food Group or the GYO group, please give Derek Smith our Secretary a ring on 01372 378914.

E-mail foodgroup@ transitionashtead.org.uk, or come along to one of the Transition Ashtead drinks evenings where there is normally one or two of us there talking vegetables!

Potential produce!

We agreed to look at the following ideas:

• Establish a community garden
• Set up a garden sharing scheme (garden sharing involves linking people with gardens they cannot manage with people who want to garden but need more land)
• Find local experts who are willing to help get started with food growing, or advise when gardening problems arise
• Encourage wild life by measures like:
  • let grass grow long
  • plant trees
  • plant hedges
  • find sites for bee hives

If you’d like to get involved in the group or want to know more, we’d love to hear from you.  You can either email us using the ‘Contact Us’ link on the Transition Ashtead home page or give me a ring on 01372-378914.

Derek Smith

We are hoping that our meeting on 30 November in the Peace Memorial Hall will help us start a Transition Ashtead food group.  This will aim to encourage more food growing in Ashtead and so the question of whether Ashtead can ever be completely self-sufficient is food is a good one.

The Surrey Organic Gardening Group has organised a meeting on Friday 27 November with the title “Can Sutton Feed Itself”.  At least two of us from Transition Ashtead are going in the hope that it will help answer the same question for Ashtead.  There is a star speaker – Patrick Holden, Director of the Soil Association, and the UK’s best known spokesman for organic farming and growing.  The meeting is at Milton Hall, Cooper Crescent, off Nightingale Rd Carshalton  SM5 2DL at 7:30pm on Fri 27 November.

If you would like to join us and want to either get or offer a lift, please give me a ring on 01372-378914.

Surrey Organic Gardening Group (SOGG) is a collection of people who enjoy many aspects of gardens and gardening.  They hold regular monthly meetings, often with guest speakers, and also arrange group visits to public gardens and other places of interest.   Their web site is http://www.sogg.btik.com/.

Derek Smith