Friends old and new, you are all warmly invited to join us at the Leyton Boundary Community Garden on Saturday 7th March from 10am to 1pm, for a gentle, friendly gathering to ease into the new growing season.

Help us design our new edible forest area (we’re very excited about this new project!), join in with some wonderful family arts and crafts activities, sow Spring seeds with us, explore our seed swap table, and have a cup of tea and a slice of cake while you’re at it!

For our friends observing Ramadan, we have boxes to take away some tasty treats for enjoyment later 🫶🏻

And if you sadly cannot join us in person, you can still follow us on the Leyton Boundary Garden Instagram to see what we get up to.

We so look forward to seeing everyone in the garden again, it promises to be a wonderful day. Keep your fingers crossed for a bit of sunshine! ☀️

Blackberry Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.

We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.”

- Seamus Heaney

Low Hanging Fruit

We got it! We’ve got even more now, at time of writing. August was the month we saw the grapevine take centre stage, having clearly established itself so well in the polytunnel over the last couple of years that it wanted everyone to know about it. The sweet purple grapes just kept popping up in huge bunches, again and again. Visitors delighted in them, and as much as we nibbled the sweet fruit they just kept coming back in abundance. No surprise, given that the polytunnel is a humidity trap (for better and worse - we were hit hard by the inevitable powdery mildew this year).

As well as the very Romanesque bunches of grapes, the garden was popping out all sorts of delicious fruiting bodies; apples (both cooking and eating), pears, apricots, cucumbers, raspberries, tomatoes, and - new for this year - cucamelons!

These little cucurbit cuties taste exactly how you think they might - somewhere between a cucumber and a melon. The tiny watermelon-shaped fruit are harvested when they’re about the size of a grape, and are delicious on their own as a snack, or in a summery salad.

Flower Power

The garden was bursting with new displays of flowering annuals and perennials, most notably in the front entrance planters where we had earlier in the season planted pollinator-friendly verbena (Purple-top vervain), Liatris spicata (Blazing Star), Nicotiana (Tobacco plant), sedums (Stonecrop), Salvia nemorosa (Caradonna), and lots of Zinnias. These newcomers accompany the existing, naturalised Narcissus (Daffodil), Allium and Crocus bulbs already in there.

We hope they’ll help to provide a wealth of colour and structural interest across the year for our human visitors, as well as have increased notable benefits for our insect residents.

No Bad Weather, Only Bad Clothing…

We know the saying, but do you know where it comes from?

The sentiment is deeply ingrained in Scandinavian culture, particularly in Norway and Sweden. In these regions, children spend significant time outdoors, regardless of the weather, to develop a positive outdoor mindset (known as friluftsliv in Norway).

While variations of the phrase exist in many cultures, the specific wording "There's no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing" is attributed to the British walking author Alfred Wainwright.

Embracing this philosophy isn’t always the most pleasant for this particular author - I’ll freely admit to being more of a fair-weather gardener, for the most part - though I must admit there’s something quite freeing and wild about going about your usual business in the middle of a torrential rainstorm as if it wasn't happening at all.

Sometimes you just need to get on with it (or finally wear that huge rain poncho you got years ago and forgot about).

August threw us a few rainy curveballs, for sure. Here’s to all the soggy gardeners out there!

Still Hanging Around

Look at these guys, aren’t they superb? It’s a little hard to tell, but this leading flowerhead is the diameter of a dinner plate.

Our sunflower love continues, with many of our plants still putting on a spectacular show even late in the season.

We save our sunflower heads once the petals are done, keeping some for us to save seeds for next year, and leaving most for the birds to enjoy.

The slow close of August heralds the ushering-in of the Autumn season, and with it the harvest season proper. While it may seem premature, like many gardeners we’ll also be looking ahead to next year, and will be considering our winter crops and winter preparation.

But for now, we shall take a breath… and soak up the last, golden rays of summer, as nature intended.

July

The air without has taken fever;
Fast I feel the beating of its pulse.
The leaves are twisted on the maple,
In the corn the autumn's premature;
The weary butterfly hangs waiting
For a breath to waft him thither at
The touch, but falls, like truth unheeded,
into dust-blown grass and hollyhocks.

The air without is blinding dusty;
Cool I feel the breezes blow; I see
The sunlight, crowded on the porch, grow
Smaller till absorbed in shadow; and
The far blue hills are changed to gray, and
Twilight lingers in the woods between;
And now I hear the shower dancing
In the cornfield and the thirsty grass.

- Alexander Lawrence Posey, circa 1900

Leyton Arts Festival 2025

On the weekend of 26th and 26th July, Leyton Boundary Garden played proud host to the inaugural Leyton Arts Festival. The community garden was transformed into a vibrant hub of workshops, music, and nature-inspired fun. Organised by the Leyton Midland Collective — a brilliant team of hardworking, local volunteers, business owners, artists and facilitators — the event brought families, creatives, and curious locals together to celebrate art, community, and the great outdoors.

Saturday’s line-up began with a burst of earthy colour and creativity at the Family Craft Workshop with Castle Play Space CIC—a gorgeous art session full of tiny hands (and grown-up ones too) making artful pieces and bee-waterers from clay and natural materials.

Nearby, local ace photographer Kate Peters ran a full-day Photography Studio Pop-Up, capturing portraits and candid moments with a London-anarchic vibe.

In the afternoon, Hannah Althea Kay led an inspiring Arts & Making Workshop. A wonderful end to the day’s festivities.

Sunday kicked off with joyful splashes, squishy dough and colourful playscapes, as Shadia Hossain led a Sensory & Water Play session for little ones aged 6 months to 8 years. Her stunning Tuff Tray play areas were gorgeously laid out, and super inspiring for kids and grown-ups alike! A massive hit that drew in a large crowd.

In the afternoon, the focus turned to the future with Creating Art for Future Parks, a collaborative workshop run by Nathan Miller, ELWP Artists, and live illustrator Brook Morgan. Participants of all ages helped envision greener, more creative urban spaces through collective art-making.

To finish off the weekend, festival-goers joined the Artist Takeover Drop-Ins, where Emma guided nature drawing sessions, and Jack & Emily introduced the magic of Cyanotype and Monoprinting.

We’re so proud to be a part of the Leyton Midland Collective, and we were thrilled to host such an inspiring weekend at Leyton Boundary Garden. A huge thanks to the incredible artists, organisers, and everyone who came along and made it special. It was clearly a massive success for the local community and wider-Leyton area. We’re already looking forward to the next one.

Sunny Side-Up

Who doesn’t love a sunflower? And we’ve got them! Including some huge ones all from the same stem, a veritable geyser of golden summery goodness.

Sunflowers are more than just beautiful bursts of yellow in a summer field — they’re full of charm, usefulness, and even a bit of magic. Here's a closer look at what makes these sunny blooms so special:

1. Sun-Seekers: Young sunflowers have a fascinating trait called heliotropism — they gently follow the sun’s path across the sky from morning to evening. As they grow older, they usually settle facing east, ready to soak up the morning light.

2. More Than Meets the Eye: What looks like one big flower is actually made up of thousands of tiny ones! The bright yellow “petals” around the edge are called ray florets, while the center is packed with disc florets where the seeds form.

3. Homegrown History: Sunflowers are native to North America and have been cultivated for thousands of years — long before they became popular garden favorites around the world.

4. Surprisingly Handy: From tasty seeds to healthy cooking oil, sunflowers are incredibly versatile. Their oil has anti-inflammatory benefits and may help lower cholesterol. Even more amazing? Sunflowers can absorb harmful toxins from the soil and have been used to help clean up places affected by nuclear disasters, like Chernobyl.

5. Symbols of Sunshine: With their bright faces and strong stems, sunflowers often represent happiness, positivity, and good luck. In some cultures, they also symbolize faith, devotion, and spiritual growth.

6. Record-Breakers: The tallest sunflower ever recorded reached over 30 feet tall — that’s about the height of a three-storey building.

7. Sunflowers in Space: Believe it or not, sunflowers have even made it to space! Astronauts have grown them on the International Space Station.

With 70+ species, and literally countless varieties, the Sunflower is a pretty special plant and for many good reasons. Do you have a favourite?

Read All About It

We’re excited to share that Leyton Boundary Garden now has its very own Little Free Library! Resting against the railings just inside the main gates, this beautiful wooden cabinet (thank you for the donation, Jon!) is a free book-sharing spot where everyone is welcome to take a book or leave one for others to enjoy.

Whether you're passing by on a walk, visiting the garden with friends, or just in need of a new read, stop by and see what’s on the shelf. From children’s stories to novels, poetry, and more — you never know what treasures you might find.

It’s a simple way to share stories, build community, and celebrate the joy of reading.

Community Wildlife

August brings a buzz of activity to the community garden — not just from people and plants, but from a whole world of wildlife quietly sharing the space with us.

Among the flowers and vegetables, rose chafers glint in the sun with their metallic green sheen, while inquisitive hoverflies and graceful damselflies whizz through the air. Grasshoppers chirp from the long grass in the wildflower meadow, surprising visitors every now and then when they hop past.

Bees of all kinds are hard at work — honeybees, bumblebees, and even the wasps, each playing their part in pollination. Parasitic wasps, though harder to spot, are also doing important ecological work. Ladybirds still patrol the leaves, helping to keep pests in check, and butterflies dance across the garden — from the flutter of Small and Large Whites to the bold patterns of Red Admirals, Gatekeepers (also called Hedge Browns), Commas, and more.

Look closely and you might notice a garden spider resting in its web, or a crab spider camouflaged on a flower, waiting patiently for a passing meal.

Foxes make regular visits, weaving through the garden in the early morning or evening light — and making massive holes underneath the tomatoes... And in nearby shady corners, some fungi have begun to appear again.

Summer Abundance

The community garden is bursting with life this season! Thanks to the sunshine (and some TLC), a whole variety of crops are growing beautifully.

Bright pink and yellow chard is thriving in the beds, while fruit trees are heavy with ripening apples, plums, pears, apricots, figs, medlars, and quinces. Among the leaves, squash are quietly swelling, corn stalks are reaching skyward, and beans are climbing happily up their supports. Tomatoes are ripening on the vine, bringing pops of red, orange, and green stripes(!) to the garden.

The sheltered space of the polytunnel has become a mini jungle of greenery, where heat-loving plants are flourishing.

Cucumbers dangle from the vines, and tiny cucamelons — like miniature watermelons with a zesty crunch — are peeking through the leaves. Fiery chillies add a splash of colour and spice, and the ginger is quietly sprouting below the surface, its leafy tops reaching higher every day.

It’s a lovely reminder of what can grow when a community comes together. The next couple of months are painted with the promise of one of the most bountiful harvests we might have ever had to date.

From us to you, dear reader: we hope you’re enjoying the summer, and staying safe in the heat. See you in August!

This weekend, the fabulous Leyton Arts Festival will be happening at various venues in the Leyton Midland area, and we’re so excited!

At Leyton Boundary Garden, we’ll be hosting amazing artists and makers, including The Castle Play Space CIC, Hannah Althea Kay, Mariam Haddad, Lilly May, Shadia Hossain, Kate Peters, Artists of East London Waterworks Park, Brook Morgan, and Emma, Jack and Emily.

Follow the Leyton Midland Collective on Instagram for more details about the weekend’s events.

And if you sadly cannot join us in person, you can still follow us on the Leyton Boundary Garden Instagram to see what we get up to!

See you all there!✌️🥳

June

June is here, the month of roses, month of brides and month of bees,
Weaving garlands for our lassies, whispering love songs in the trees,
Painting scenes of gorgeous splendor, canvases no man could brush,
Changing scenes from early morning till the sunset's crimson flush.

June is here, the month of blossoms, month of roses white and red,
Wet with dew and perfume-laden, nodding wheresoe'er we tread;
Come the bees to gather honey, all the lazy afternoon;
Flowers and lassies, men and meadows, love alike the month of June.

Month of love and month of sunshine, month of happiness and song,
Month that cheers the sad wayfarer as he plods the road along;
Spreading out a velvet carpet, green and yellow, for his feet,
And affording for his rest hours many a cool and sweet retreat.

- Edgar A. Guest, 1917

Gardening For Wellbeing

Our Gardening for Wellbeing sessions at Leyton Boundary Garden began on 6th June and are initially running every Friday morning from 10am to 1pm for six weeks. The sessions offer a relaxed and supportive space to learn new gardening skills while growing vegetables, herbs, and flowers. They’re designed to support mental and physical wellbeing and help reduce feelings of isolation by bringing people together in a welcoming green space.

We’ve long understood the connection that our health has with being outside and working with the earth, and it’s been wonderful to see participants connect, unwind, and enjoy the simple pleasure of being in the garden.

We’re looking forward to the weeks ahead. Thank you Alex (our delightful Head Gardener) for running these much loved and needed sessions. If you would like to join the sessions, please email Alex directly.

Scorching

Oh, it was a hot one, wasn’t it folks? Let me tell you, working in a polytunnel on the hottest days of the year was a struggle. Still the show had to go on; there was watering to do, sowing and potting-on, and harvests to gather!

The onions were ready to dig up, and there were so many of them! Red and white varieties to enjoy, what a haul. A great activity for our little gardeners to do, pulling up the onions and transporting them to the table to be shared was great fun.

The last of the broad beans were cut down and shelled, and everything in the ground was tended to gently. It was so dry that everything needed regular watering (including the volunteers).

We urged everyone to stay cool and hydrated — sun hats and sunscreen aplenty. Our Tea Shed provided shade and refreshments.

Thoughts on installing a splash pad for next year..?

Welcome, Sisters!

On 1st June, Leyton Boundary Garden hosted the inaugural session of Hafsah Hafeji’s Sisters’ Gardening Club. Hafsah, already a much-loved figure in local community garden spaces and Spitalfields City Farm, hosted two special gardening clubs this month dedicated to local Muslim women.

The sessions were a great success, bringing together women of all ages and experience to share gardening skills, stories, and a strong sense of community. Participants praised the warm and inclusive atmosphere, and many expressed a desire for more regular gatherings. Due to the overwhelmingly positive response, Hafsah plans to continue the gardening club in the coming months, offering a consistent and welcoming space for learning, connection, and growth.

We're thrilled to welcome this wonderful new initiative to the garden and wish the Sisters Gardening Club continued joy and fulfilment as they grow and thrive in this shared space.

30 Days Wild 2025

We partnered with Caroline at The Castle Play Space to share nature-focussed ideas for young gardeners and wildlife enthusiasts during June.

30 Days Wild is an annual challenge from The Wildlife Trusts, encouraging people to connect with nature by doing one wild thing every day in June. It aims to boost well-being, promote nature connectedness, and inspire pro-nature behaviors. The challenge is free and offers resources and inspiration for participants.

Take a look at Caroline’s and the Leyton Boundary Garden Instagram grids to revisit all the amazing ideas and inspiration they’ve shared!

Wildlife Pond Update!

You may remember (how could we even forget?) that last month we built a whole wildlife pond at the garden as part of our long-term biodiversity plan. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s settling-in brilliantly, and already the wildlife is making itself quite at home in it!

First, some upgrades: Jenny installed two solar-powered oxygenating pumps connected to small air stones to get the water moving a little and prevent absolute stagnation. The community garden gets prolonged sunlight during the day, so this was a great way to keep our new pond healthy, especially during the heat we experienced early in the month. She also fixed the pond ramp to the sides, and tethered down the large branch spanning the pond so that it wouldn’t keep dropping into the water.

Next, we added some aquatic plants including some that were so kindly donated to us. Water mint, that will happily spread just like its land-growing counterpart around the margins. And figwort which is an insect magnet. Jenny also purchased some additional oxygenating plants: hornwort bunches, water soldiers, and frog bit. A Marsh Marigold was added, a gorgeous Purple Loosestrife, and three beautiful pond lilies too. Jenny rigged up a hanging basket-style lowering system to ensure the lilies ended up where they would be most happy in the deep end (sound on):

There was a sad moment a few days later when we discovered that the Purple Loosestrife had plummeted to the bottom of the pond — most likely from being prodded at from the edges by an inquisitive fox. It served as a good reminder to tether things down better in future.

We knew that we’d probably start seeing the tiniest things first: mosquito larvae, maybe some rat-tailed maggots (sounds delightful, I know, but these are the larval form of our much needed hoverfly pollinator buddies). The bottom of the food chain always comes first in a healthy ecosystem. But what we hadn’t imagined would happen so fast was the appearance of the ladybirds, parasitic wasps, honeybees, midges, craneflies and moths!

“If you build it, they will come” never rang so true.

Bye-nana Tree

Alas, the decision had to be made. Our banana tree, donated a few years ago by the lovely Silma, had outgrown its position in the polytunnel for some time. We hadn’t moved it yet because, well, we were a bit nervous about whether it would survive 1) the removal process, and 2) its new designated position.

But the branches were bending on the polytunnel roof, it was stunted and sad. We never got any fruit from it. So on 14th June, at a point in the year when banana trees are happier being moved, we decided that enough was enough (with Silma’s blessing!).

We tried to remove the whole tree at first, but quickly realised that wasn’t going to happen. A somewhat fortuitous realisation, turns out, as the banana tree had 5 new shoots at the base. Planting these outside in a sunny sheltered position would give them their best opportunity to root down and acclimate before the winter. So we used that classic gardeners’ tool — a wood saw — to reduce the main tree chunk by chunk, until we could use brute force to remove the rootball.

We made another fun discovery — banana tree stems not only look like cucumber, but they smell like them too! An unmistakeable banana-and-cucumber smoothie scent filled the polytunnel as we worked.

Once outside, we could isolate the baby banana stems growing at the base and remove them ready for planting elsewhere.

We planted the new banana trees in a sunny bed across from the polytunnel. We considered how we might be able to give them the best fighting change of establishing, wary of how hot the weather had become. Jenny suggested using olla pots to help distribute water to the shoots. We didn’t have any olla pots specifically at the community garden, but we did have some old terracotta pots that could be plugged at the bottom so we did just that. The pots were buried closely to the banana shoots, filled with water and the saucers were used as lids to help slow evaporation.

We’ll keep you posted on how the little bananas settle in!

Make It Do It art workshop

On a hot and sunny 21st June, the illustrious Tara from Make it Do It hosted a fabulous art workshop at the community garden. The young participants and their adults joined in creating some stunningly decorated terracotta pots painted in the style of Van Gogh! We supplied sunflowers to be planted into the pots once the paint was dry, and everyone took their magnificent creations home to enjoy.

We absolutely loved everything about this event, and LBG was the perfect location for such green (and red, blue, orange, pink, yellow…)-fingered creativity. Absolutely something we would love to see at the garden again. If you’d like to collaborate with us for your creative event, get in touch!

Vicarage Road Jumble Trail

On 22nd June (yes, a busy weekend!), we held a vibrant plant sale as part of the Vicarage Road Jumble Trail. It was a joy to welcome both familiar faces and new visitors—some who didn’t even know the garden existed! The event was a fantastic way to share our love of growing with the local community while raising essential funds for the garden.

We’re excited to host more plant sales throughout the year and continue growing together

Exciting news! On the 27th & 28th July 2025, the Leyton Arts Festival will be rolling up and rolling out across the Leyton Midland area. And we’re officially a venue!

Follow the Leyton Midland Collective on Instagram for more details about the weekend’s events, and information on how to get involved.

We’ll be shouting about all the awesome activities we’ll be hosting in the very near future, so stay tuned to the Leyton Boundary Garden Instagram too.

Watch this space!✌️🥳

May And The Poets

There is May in books forever;
May will part from Spenser never;
May's in Milton, May's in Prior,
May's in Chaucer, Thomson, Dyer;
May's in all the Italian books:—
She has old and modern nooks,
Where she sleeps with nymphs and elves,
In happy places they call shelves,
And will rise and dress your rooms
With a drapery thick with blooms.
Come, ye rains, then if ye will,
May's at home, and with me still;
But come rather, thou, good weather,
And find us in the fields together.

- Leigh Hunt, 1816

First plant sale of the season

We hold plant sales when possible to help support the garden and spread our love of growing food and flowers within our local community, operating on a “£2 suggestion / Pay What You Can” basis. We love plant sales as they’re a wonderful way to meet members of the community, make gardening more accessible, and get everyone involved in the preparation and process of sharing our lovingly-tended green things!

It was a perfect Saturday, not too cold and not too hot, the sun joining in without being oppressive. On sale were sunflowers, tomatoes, Sweet Wormwood, Tagetes (flowering plants from the marigold family), bee-favourite verbena, and more.

All the funds raised go straight back to the garden, including seeds and materials for future plant sales, becoming a self-sustaining regular event that brings people together and helps us share the gardening experience with the community even more.

In the trenches

May saw us planting out chitted spuds (no, that’s not an insult). We went with “Casablanca” and “Lady Christl”. There must have been a rush on the much adored and sought-after “Ratte” variety as it couldn’t be bought anywhere.

The process of potato growing is an interesting one; pop them in, let them leaf up, then bury them again, repeatedly (a process called “mounding up”). Each layer will produce new spuds! Clever.

We also planted out some sweet potato “slips” in the planters alongside the wildflower meadow. We chose the varieties “Erato Vineland” and “Erato White”.

Unlike regular chitted (sprouting seed) potatoes that can be thrown whole into the ground, sweet potatoes need to be planted in as young shoots grown from a mother sweet potato. These are usually grown by immersing the sweet potato in water until it starts to root and produce green foliage. The shoots (“slips”) are then planted directly into the ground, just like rooted cuttings.

Elsewhere in the garden, we were harvesting rhubarb, broad beans and salad leaves, clearing space and planting all sorts - “Green Zebra”, “Essex Wonder” and “San Marzano” tomatoes, lettuces, climbing beans, squash, raspberries and blueberries, chives, parsley, marigolds and all sorts.

We’re excited to see what our harvest will be like in a few months!

Water feature!

It is with absolute thrill and utter delight that I can share that our new wildlife pond is here! Using some of the funding granted to us from OrganicLea as part of their Waltham Wild project, we agreed a materials list, ordered, and set to work one sunny Saturday.

It was all hands on deck, as the ground needed digging down, the base needed levelling, and some plants we loved like our self-seeded sedum needed to be potted up and moved if they were at risk. Thought was given to how best to preserve the timber by helping water to run-off the base during rainfall. We also wanted to ensure that our smaller visitors couldn’t immediately access the water either. We used 2 layers of heavy duty DPM, sandwiching old wood offcuts and carpet in-between to create levels, then added gravel, but not before some incredibly fun power tool work.

We’d have preferred to use rainwater to fill the pond, but Jon did the math - it would’ve taken us 72 hours or so of constant manual siphoning. So instead, we filled from the tap and Jenny dechlorinated the water with a nature-friendly tap water treatment.

One of our volunteers made a fantastic ramp to aid wildlife getting in and out of the water. Just outside the community garden gate, the London Plane tree next door had gifted us a fallen branch that was the perfect size to straddle the pond, dipping gracefully into the water in the centre.

After a few hot and humid days and with no pond snails yet to deal with it, the algae was blooming, so we added two solar powered pond pumps with air stones to help with oxygenation. We added (kindly donated) water milfoil and frogbit, figwort and water mint too.

Next steps will be bringing in some more pond plants, and raising some of the levels with blocks or bricks for marginal plants like marsh marigold and loosestrife.

We’ve already seen some tiny new life in the water in the form of mosquito, midge and hoverfly larvae, so the food chain has begun! Who knows, perhaps we’ll even spot a dragonfly this summer. We can’t wait to see it evolve.

Natural pest control

Our broad beans have been a huge hit this year, especially with the bugs. Despite the cloud of black aphids dotted over the stems and leaves, the beans themselves are absolutely fine huddled inside their smart little jackets. We’ve had fun with some of our younger volunteers shelling the beans!

We’ve also been enjoying the incredible number of ladybirds attracted to the beans (or rather the aphids) - ladybirds in all variation of colours and life stages, native and non-native.

With over 100 variation in appearance, the Harlequin ladybird in particular is a fun and striking sight. However, it is classed as an invasive species in the UK. Native to Asia, it first arrived around 2004. It’s been highly successful due to its rapid spread and can be found in most areas of the UK now. It eats more, breeds more, and has no qualms about pushing the native competition out. There is concern that the Harlequin ladybird's impact on native ladybird populations may be significant. The “grey squirrel” of the ladybird family, if you will.

Check out this handy visual guide to the ladybird species you might find across the UK from BBC Wildlife:

Spinning around

And finally, maybe you already know the joys of using a rotary compost sifter over a traditional riddle (a bit niche, I know), but we used one for the first time at the garden during May to refine our glorious home-made compost with more efficiency.

What a difference it makes! I can tell you that, personally, my back is much happier for the switch-up. We’ll be using it as our primary sifting tool from now on at Leyton Boundary Garden to help us sift even more, even faster.

The things we get excited about, eh?

Colour bursting everywhere

April is supposed to bring showers, but as we’ve all seen, the Spring has been unseasonably dry so far. Nevertheless, the wildflowers were showing up in abundance across the garden, visitors delighting in their showy rainbow of colours everywhere.

California poppies, a gorgeous deep orange to neon yellow flush of colour spread across the meadow, contrasting against the well-established blue borage. Self-seeded sedums in deep red hues attracted the busy bees, Herb Robert looking pretty and delicate peeping out from the nooks and crannies. And even the tulips carried on with their mixed hues of coral, purple and pink.

Green means go

The community garden volunteers had their hands full (and dirty) as the digging, planting, watering and mulching jobs mounted up.

We dug in a new crop this year, Chinese artichokes, which looked rather like juicy grubs. Tomato seedlings were transferred to their own pots, chillies were tended to gently, and vigourous baby gooseberries were split and repotted to be moved elsewhere.

We always think we have enough small size pots, but still get surprised every time with the number needed at this time of year!

Sweet sweet storage, and other stories

A long awaited project happened in April; the rebirth of our garden tool shed(s)! With a little to-ing and fro-ing, we reconfigured our storage space to enable us to house and protect our tools from the elements a little better.

We repurposed two pallets to make standing storage of our larger tools, and organised our hand tools on shelves for easy access. We’ll be looking into the best way to hang some items up safely too, and perhaps even some kind of simple light source for the duller days.

Further up the garden, Jenny added chalkboard paint to the meadow-side planters, so that we may label their contents (always a bit tricky to know if you weren’t the one planting them).

The bug mansion (that shall from now on be affectionately called “Bugingham Palace“) received some paint to its roof too, and our a-frames and other signage boards got a satisfying refresh.

Everything done had greater accessibility and communication in mind, and so far we’ve been very happy with the results. Not a bad morning’s work!

Spotted! 🐞

All our tiniest critters were having a literal field day during April. Some of the garden friends we spotted were:

• Native ladybirds - in the meadow, and chasing aphids on the brassicas

• Cranefly - sheltering from the wind on spear-leaved crocosmia

• Garden Tiger Moth caterpillar - trundling across weed-suppressing cardboard in the beds

• Ground Beetle - beautiful green iridescence, bolting through the compost

• Cabbage White butterflies - flitting through the wildflower meadow

• Black Clock Beetle - another happy and skittish compost dweller

New midweek gardening club!

We’ve been asked quite often whether the garden could be opened at any additional times of the week, as well as our usual Gardening Club on Saturdays. We’ve always loved having anyone pop in to, and make use of, the garden whenever they like so that the space can be loved by as many visitors as possible. But perhaps a midweek Gardening Club would be welcome?

After some public polling, the results were in; our most sought-after session midweek would cater to the after-work crew, the pre-and post-dinner folks. So, in April, we started our Midweek Gardening Club!

Every Wednesday from 4pm-7pm, you can now come to the garden for our general opening, get involved with our gardening tasks, or just pop in for a visit to wind down after a long day. We’ll be here, showing the garden space even more love.

By popular demand, Leyton Boundary Garden will be open for gardening club midweek from tomorrow, as well as Saturdays. Our first midweek session will be tomorrow, Wednesday 16th April.

Join us for even more fresh air, new friends, and green thumbs, every Wednesday from 4pm-7pm.

Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just planting your first seed, there’s a spot in the garden waiting for you. Come get your hands dirty and your heart full.

All welcome!

Leyton Boundary Gardening Club:
now every Wednesday from 4pm-7pm, and Saturday from 10am-1pm 💚

Our Spring Reopening Event

On 1st March 2025, Leyton Boundary Community Garden reopened its gates for the new growing season. The local community joined together for the first Saturday Gardening Club session of the year, celebrated the garden and enjoyed some tasty delights.

We welcomed esteemed award-winning landscape designer Miria Harris and her lovely assistant Rae, to learn about her and Garden Designer Humaira Ikram’s workshop at the William Morris Gallery, “Paradise Gardens”. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet Miria in person, and to understand the importance of form and pattern, journeys and sensory delights sought within Islamic garden design.

There was much interest gathered and the workshop the following week was a wonderful success! We’re long-time avid fans of the William Morris Gallery and their namesake, and hugely look forward to working together again in future.

Day One of Gardening Club 2025 and there was much to get stuck into already. Everyone got their hands dirty and helped out, the Spring sunshine fuelling our spirits and endeavours.

Already there were crops to harvest, share and take home to enjoy: artichokes, fresh rosemary, and winter greens.

And aside from the homegrown goodies, the assortment of party food and refreshments was a huge hit, and we were cleaned out, making for an easy cleanup at the end of the day!

What a fantastic start to the community garden for 2025. It was such a delight meeting with old friends and welcoming new ones. We’re excited to see what we can do together this year!

All hands on deck

March is always a busy time in the gardening calendar; the promise of so much to come, renewed by the warmer earth. Many of our crops ready to harvest now had been sown in the colder earlier months. Winter greens like lettuces and lovage, deliciously fresh and tender. The beans and rhubarb were growing strong, onions and shallots sprouting up everywhere outside, and new seeds were sown in the polytunnel.

This year promises to be greener and more lush than ever!

Full-circle seed sowing

This March, we sowed our seeds using compost gathered and refined directly from our cold-composting bays. It’s such an important milestone for us as a community garden to be able to take a huge step forward in being a self-sustaining project. The feeling of coming full-circle is so exciting.

We’ve learned much about compost over the years, and about how to make it work in the particular setup and conditions we have in the community garden. The sense of fulfilment setting our new crops for the year in our own homemade compost was exquisite.

Here’s to more homegrown everything!

Hairy-Footed Friends

Many of the bulbs in our planters have been established for a few years now, and as such have naturalised rather well. March was beckoned in with a flush of fresh green shoots from the crocus, daffodils and anemones all over.

With the buds came the bees; one of the first bees to appear in UK Springtime is the Hairy-Footed Flower Bee. Active between February and June, these native solitary bees are distinctly different between the males and females: males have a pale yellow face and hairy tufts on their legs, and females are often mistaken for bumblebees due to their larger, rounded black furry bodies and orange fuzzy back legs.

They can be seen buzzing loudly, darting around flowers from early Spring, often with their long tongues out. The male Hairy-Footed Flower Bee can be seen chasing the females, multiple bees zipping around a female a common sight.

One of my personal favourite signs of Spring, we love seeing these bees thrive in the community garden.

Until next time, we all at LBG hope you’re enjoying the sunshine, spring greenery and your respective renewed social spaces. So much to look forward to - let’s get growing!

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As Spring is finally in the air, blossom is on the trees and the sun is in the sky, why not set up a table outside and create your own spring bloom pictures?

Take a walk around the streets, parks, forests and gardens of Waltham Forest and you will see an explosion of pastel blooms that have taken over our trees, all recently bloomed and ready to be enjoyed by the patient bees and pollinators.

Explore the colours, shapes and patterns of the blossom together. Can you get close enough to smell or gently feel them? What happens when the wind shakes the trees? Can you catch the falling blossom in your hands? What does it remind you of?

My favourite thing to do in Spring is fill the house with fresh air and colour. This craft brightens up every space and only uses poster paint and recycled cardboard tubes. It’s so simple and effective, you’ll do it every spring.

Start by collecting toilet roll tubes and empty kitchen towel tubes. Use scissors to snip the ends of the tubes in different ways like this:

Simply dip the tubes into your chosen paint, using pastel pinks, blues and yellows really make your picture feel like Spring but you can use any colour you see on your travels. Muscari and crocus purple, primula red and pansy yellows look lovely too.

Keep adding flower heads to your page until you are happy. Then add green stalks with paint or a felt tip pen.

Now start collecting those tubes, head outside and get crafting!

Caroline Ede is an Early-Years Consultant with an abundance of experience working with young people. She is the owner of The Castle Stay & Play, and Cook Me A Story.

Greenhouse love

One of the main things we wanted to achieve from our winter infrastructure work period was to repair and revive our little greenhouse at the community garden.

For too long it had sat a bit unloved by necessity; damaged by previous bad weather, housing plant pots and old rain water but nothing much else in the way of life. The problem is these kinds of repairs can sometimes be costly and time-consuming. As a community garden we must almost constantly adjust according to changing conditions.

But, by golly, the greenhouse’s time to shine had finally come in the form of our handy garden friends, Simon and Jon. The bones were cleaned up and panes were replaced. We even have a fully working door!

Needless to say that the greenhouse will once again have its time in the sun in 2025, allowing us to nurture more green shoots than ever before.

A clean slate

I don’t know about you, but a really good Spring Clean is like a healing balm for me (hi, I’m Jenny! I write these newsletters). Imagine how thrilling it was to get stuck into the area behind the Tea Shed to sort through all the once-maybe-useful bits and bobs, now past their usefulness. We kept what we could, and tossed the rest, leaving a bright, clean open area for… well, you’ll just have to wait and see!

There’s been a few ideas floating around on how we could utilise this cosy area. A drying area, perhaps? Better storage? An outside kitchen?

Who knows? We don’t, yet. But it’s delightful to be able to see it again, and I’m sure it’ll reignite inspiration in 2025.

Out with the old

Well, all that rubbish had to go somewhere, I suppose. We began a new pile, and bit by bit it grew and grew. And then it grew some more.

Happily, it was all cleared before we reopened on Saturday 1st March (more information about that in the next newsletter).

In with the old

As part of our biodiversity work, Jenny procured a large amount of old logs from a locally felled tree. Left to ripen, they were already teeming with their own little ecosystems! With some (very) heavy lifting help from Ysr and Hugh, we managed to get them to the community garden, ready for a new life as a wildlife habitat.

They currently reside in the wildflower meadow, adding some shelter and structure for the tiniest of living things. Later, they may be moved elsewhere to help create habitat walls. But for now, they look right at home surrounded by the Spring buds.

Compost baes

(Sorry not sorry, I love a good pun.)

As a community garden with a key focus on organic growing and aims of self-sustainability, we love, nay adore, our homemade compost. If you are not yet aware, we use a cold composting system with a typical 3-bay rotation (you can bring your compostable waste to us if you’d like!).

The compost area is such a central part of life at the garden. But the bays themselves needed a spruce up and some reinforcement. Jenny took it upon herself to have a go over a couple of sessions, making use of the remaining useable wood on-site, replacing parts, adding a couple of new pallet walls, and lining each bay with chicken wire to help prevent spillage. Old scaffold boards were attached at the front to keep it all where it ought to be.

The brown waste was chopped up with the help of a couple of volunteers, and set aside for easier use.

Job done!

What is this - a home for ants?

We love our bugs, we really do. Even the slimy ones. So we created not just a bug hotel, but a whole resort for them. A minicreatuce mansion, if you will.

The great thing about bug hotels is that you can make them out of more or less anything. We added sticks, a couple of tyres, pipes, broken terracotta pots, grasses, old teasel heads, bricks...

Behold, our ever-evolving masterpiece of engineering for invertebrates.

Curious structures

The wonderful folk at thinkFOUND create glorious items from reclaimed and recycled materials. They got in touch with us to see if we would like to rehome a wonderfully versatile wooden pavilion with roof sails after it was built for another local outdoor event, prolonging its life and continuing to be useful for the community. We said yes please!

Once the weather cleared up a bit towards the end of February, Jon and Devin rebuilt it in it’s new space, where it shall be used as a focal point for on-site events and sitting out enjoying the sunshine.

We love our new henge, and we’re sure you will too.

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On 1st March 2025, Leyton Boundary Community Garden will be reopening. To greet the new growing season, we invite our wonderful community to join us in gentle celebration and renewed curiousity.

From 10am until 1pm we shall be running our Saturday Gardening Club, enjoying some delicious light bites and refreshments, and gathering with friends old and new.

We shall be welcoming members of the William Morris Gallery, award-winning landscape designer Miria Harris, and Garden Designer Humaira Ikram to learn about their upcoming workshop at the gallery, “Paradise Gardens”.

Takeaway boxes will also be available for all those who need one, especially our friends observing Ramadan.

All are welcome, all the time, and everything is free. We look forward to seeing you there!

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ATTENTION: this newsletter contains bugs (invertebrate and spider photos).

A Windy Visit to the Mobile Garden

On 8th December, Jenny took up a kind invitation from Ysr - one of our volunteers - to tour the Mobile Garden in the Copper Box Arena, Stratford. Storm Darragh still lingered, but the wind and rain wasn’t enough to prevent a visit!

Read on for the rundown, in Ysr’s own words:

It was a thoroughly delightful visit and Jenny came away with lots of inspiration for the Leyton Boundary Garden, not least the art of crop rotation, Three Sisters symbiotic growing, and the Textile Garden.

Make sure to check out the Mobile Garden’s Facebook page, where you can find news and updates from Ysr himself on the goings on down at the Mobile Garden site.

Thanks again for your wonderful hospitality!

Look Up

If you’re not already in the habit of doing so, perhaps you might consider helping our fluffy feathered friends out with food to supplement their natural diets. At this time of year food is scarce for all wildlife, bar those who can find certain berries and seeded plants. Even in cities, birds can struggle, especially with high levels of competition (not least from the grey squirrels).

You can help wild birds by leaving food in areas where they would naturally forage; hanging bird feeders and suet balls, pellets or half coconut shells will attract House Sparrows, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Long-Tailed Tits, Great Spotted Woodpeckers and Starlings (and Ring-Necked Parakeets, if you’re in East London!).

Scattering dried mealworms and wild bird seed beneath plant stems and in flower beds will help Robins, Blackbirds, Magpies, Crows, Wood pigeons and European Jays, who prefer to forage on the ground.

There are lots of DIY bird feeding ideas to be found online, a great activity for children to get involved in that helps them learn more about birds.

And wildlife still needs access to water in the winter. Perhaps invest in a small bird bath or a DIY one. Any shallow dish works, and rainwater is always preferred.

Looking out for wildlife in winter is especially rewarding. With some native UK bird species in frighteningly steep declines in recent years, every little bit truly does help.

Look Down

Huddled within frosted-leaf fall and beneath the wind-scattered flowerpots, life lays quietly but very much still in abundance.

Continuing on from our work inspired by OrganicLea’s biodiversity work, Jenny popped down to the garden mid-December to take field notes on how our tiny friends are doing and not just dealing with the season, but very much making the most of it.

Beneath the leaves strewn into deep pockets by the wind alongside the bed edges are numerous Tiger worms, (also known as Red Worms, Red Wigglers, or composting worms). Some long, some short, all gathered together feasting on the fallen leaves and creating the most amazing leaf mould.

Leopard slugs huddle on overturned leaves during the day, before venturing out at night. The gardener’s friend, Leopard slugs eat fungi, decaying plant material, and other slugs. They don't damage healthy plants, but they do eat other slugs that can damage garden plants and vegetables.

Underneath one of the butler sinks, a striking and large Wolf Spider scuttles out. A solitary predator, they target common garden pests.

However you feel personally about the proximity of bugs, they truly can be a gardener’s best friend. A large aspect of our biodiversity plans for 2025 involve recreating habitat for these critters to support the natural ecosystem at work. We look forward to showing you our progress in coming months, and perhaps inspiring you to do something similar in your own growing spaces.

Look Back, Look Forward

Gardeners are generally fond of reflection; learning from experiments, trialling new crops and planting schemes, practising new skills, and better understanding the environment and microclimates in their particular growing spaces. We’re no different at the Leyton Boundary Garden, and we make a point of doing it formally at least once or twice a year. Like any garden anywhere, we enjoy the journey and evolution of our community space just as much as the results.

So, we’re curious; what would you like to see us explore or expand upon over the coming year? Do you have any ideas for us to try out? A new method of growing, or a particular crop worth a spotlight? How might we help people enjoy the community garden more than ever? We’d love to hear your thoughts.

As ever, please leave us a comment or email us at info@leytonboundarygarden.com if you have a particular idea that we’ve not covered in our poll.

Thinking Ahead

We’d like to share some important thoughts from our friends at the Waltham Forest Food Growing Network. We encourage all those interested to attend one of their open meetings to find out more and get involved.

Warm Wishes

Finally, as we round off another year and we quietly fade into wintering, we all at Leyton Boundary Garden would like to thank you heartily for your company and your support. However you engage with the garden, whether in-person or online, regularly or not, your care and attention of our community space is so important and so gratefully appreciated. We hope that you too will use this season of fallow to fully rest and recuperate before the excitement and anticipation of Spring arrives.

The community garden will remain closed and this newsletter too shall enter a period of rest now until March, when we look forward to emerging again.

From all of us at Leyton Boundary Garden; we wish you a delightful festive season and a joyful start to an enriching 2025.

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Community Meal 2024

On 16th November, the Leyton Boundary Garden hosted a thankful celebration of food and friends. We invited everyone from the community and beyond to spend the afternoon together, enjoy each-other’s company, eat delicious food, create art and have a sing-song with toasted marshmallows. The weather was on our side luckily!

We were delighted to welcome Punam from Khao Suppers, who had used ingredients taken fresh from the community garden to created a crowd-pleasing coconut daal with rice, radish raita, Swiss chard fritters, artichokes and salad for us all to enjoy. We even got to experience a yummy Medlar “cheesecake“!

Phillipa’s warm plum cordial was a huge hit, and Jenny’s mulled apple juice brought forth the seasonal vibes, enriching the air with scents of cinnamon and orange. Homemade cakes and treats were brought for all to enjoy - and oh, how they were enjoyed! - with a warming cup of tea or coffee.

Our Head Gardener Ally showcased her expansive skillset doing face painting for the kids (and grown-ups if they wanted to). Caroline from The Castle Stay & Play provided fantastic arts and craft projects for the children with natural, seasonal materials, yielding some amazing creations.

And as the chill started to edge in, marshmallows were toasted around the fire while folks had a singalong and played music together. What a wonderful send off for the garden before the big Winter sleep, and a gorgeous way to spend a day with friends old-and-new.

Thank you to all who could join us on the day, and to all who couldn't join us on the day but helped to make our event as wonderful as it was, nonetheless. Until next time!

AGM 2024

On 9th November, we held our AGM at the garden. Our general planning meetings and AGMs are open to all who wish to attend, having an active interest in the garden and looking after it, practically or administratively.

We covered many ideas and topics; from finance, fundraising and governance, to compost, crops, events, projects and provisions. We looked back to celebrate what we have achieved to date, reflected on where we are now and what we look forward to building, nurturing and stewarding in the future.

With a new year came a change in organisation too. Our core administration team are voted in for a year’s term. Nicola stood down as 2023-24 Chair and Jenny was voted in as Secretary for 2024-25. Natalya was re-voted in as Treasurer. We re-elected our 10-person strong advisory circle - thank you to everyone who stepped into this crucial role for the year!

We thank Nicola, and Hilda, Finch and Jon before her for their warm, steadfast and grounded leadership, for their help in setting and securing the landscape of our values and our mission, and for their help in the transition to the new year. Continued thanks to Natalya for acting as Treasurer. Nicola will continue as temporary Chair until we have confirmation of who will take on this role in Spring 2025. Please reach out for an informal conversation if you are in any way interested.

If you would like to know more details from our 2024 AGM, you can contact us on info@leytonboundarygarden.com.

A Special Thank You

Earlier this year, Leyton Boundary Garden received news of a successful funding bid from the National Lottery Community Fund. This crucial funding enabled us to take a pivotal step and welcome our Outreach Officer, Alex.

Her horticultural expertise, teachings, and genuine passion for organic growing has made a huge impression on the garden and all those in the community who love it. Alex is a font of knowledge, instrumental in steering the garden to flourish and sharing skills in her workshops from container growing to fermentation. Above all, Alex is quite possibly one of the loveliest people we know and it’s been an utter privilege to have her support.

So, a massive thank you Alex; for all your hard work, for your inspiring, kind and effective guidance, and for becoming such a cornerstone of Leyton Boundary Garden. We look forward to learning more from you and working with you next year.

Eyes on winter wildlife

As part of the Waltham Forest Food Growers Network, we have the opportunity to link with many other fantastic community gardens for many collective endeavours.

The wonderful folks over at OrganicLea are helping to bind together the strengths of the network to take action for biodiversity in Waltham Forest with their Waltham Wild project. Working with and alongside nature is a key element of organic gardening and certainly no less in urban environments (perhaps even more-so in many respects).

Following on from the workshop in October, Leyton Boundary Garden is making headway on observing and recording our biodiversity, in and around the community garden site. This will help to shape our plans to support and strengthen it in the coming months and years.

Check out our first post about the Waltham Wild workshop in our October newsletter here!

A place for everything, and everything in its place

The cold months beckon forward a slew of slightly unglamorous but still-quite-exciting tasks in the shape of reinforcement and repair of our infrastructure, and the building of new projects.

We started off gently with minor repairs to the polytunnel, which had become a little battered by the weather as well as the nightly raiding by foxes and local cats. We also moved some herby friends from their butler sinks to new temporary containers, making room for new additions to the gravelled area. Jenny created some new signage for the front and side gates, bringing a rush of colour along with updated garden information.

There’s lots more to do already listed, including the creation of storage for all types of things, building things, moving things, patching things, cleaning things, making things, and so on.

We’ll be busy onsite, dipping in and out, as-and-when needed and possible. Everyone and anyone is welcome to lend a hand with our Winter tasks. The best way to keep up to date on the what’s, when’s and where’s is to join our WhatsApp Community.

Cold hands, warm farewells (for now)

Now that the cold season has very much arrived, Saturday Gardening Club has ended for 2024 and shall restart next year in March 2025.

We look forward to welcoming you back in early Spring.

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Snickerdoodles are said to have their name derived from the German word schneckennudeln ("snail noodle"). We have no idea why, as they resemble neither snails nor noodles. But however cryptic their etymology, they are very simply our favourite winter-themed cookie. I hope you enjoy them as much as we do at home.

This recipe makes 30-36 cookies. But I’ll tell you now, it won’t be enough ;)

Ingredients:

Cookie Mix:

• 1 cup / 227g softened butter

• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

• 1 cup / 200g granulated sugar

• ⅓ cup / 65g brown sugar

• 2 medium eggs

• 3 cups / 360g plain flour

• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

• 2 teaspoons cream of tartar

• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

• ¼ teaspoon salt

Cinnamon Sugar Coating:

• ¼ cup of granulated sugar

• 2 tablespoons of ground cinnamon

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 190°C (375°F).

2. In a small bowl, mix together the ingredients for the cinnamon sugar coating until evenly incorporated. Set aside.

3. Now make the cookie dough: in a large mixing bowl whip the butter with vanilla extract until it’s light and fluffy.

4. Add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and mix until well incorporated.

5. Stir in the eggs until thoroughly incorporated.

6. Add the flour, cream of tartar, cinnamon, baking soda, and salt and sift into the dough. Combine until evenly mixed.

7. Cover with cling film and chill for 30-60 minutes in the fridge.

8. When chilled, use your hands to roll the dough into ping-pong sized balls.

9. Dip the dough into cinnamon sugar mixture and roll around, covering the dough ball completely.

10. Place the cookie dough balls on a baking paper-lined baking sheet and bake for 10-12 minutes.

11. Allow to cool, serve and enjoy!

Notes:

No notes; there’s really no improvement on perfection.

This recipe was originally found on Tasty.co.

Ingredients:

• Apple cider - OR - cloudy apple juice

Mulling Spices Mix (approximately equal amounts of):

• Dried orange zest - OR - fresh orange peel

• Cinnamon sticks

• Whole cloves

• Whole allspice berries

• Cardamom pods

• Ground nutmeg (a pinch)

Directions:

1. Pour your apple cider, or cloudy apple juice, into a large pot or slow cooker and heat to warm.

2. Add your mulling spices mix; you can add to a fine-mesh bag to float, or just add them directly to the pan (just remember to use a tea strainer to sieve out anything you don’t want to drink!). Recommended serving is 1 tablespoon of spices mix per 1 litre of cider (or juice).

3. Allow to sit over a low heat to allow the flavours to infuse. This can be as long or as short as your personal taste allows, but a good hour is quite delicious.

4. Serve warm in a mug, and if you’re feeling fancy, garnish with a thin orange slice or a cinnamon stick (nature’s mug stirrer).

Notes:

This delicious drink can be paired with so many other foody delights! For sweet treats try apple pie, cinnamon rolls or doughnuts. For savoury, cheeses like a creamy brie or a sharp cheddar work perfectly. And if you want to elevate it for cocktail hour, tried-and-true pairings include bourbon, brandy and spiced rum.

This recipe includes additional serving and accompaniment suggestions from InspiredByCharm.com

by George Cooper

October gave a party;
The leaves by hundreds came—
The Chestnuts, Oaks, and Maples,
And leaves of every name.
The Sunshine spread a carpet,
And everything was grand,
Miss Weather led the dancing,
Professor Wind the band.

The Chestnuts came in yellow,
The Oaks in crimson dressed;
The lovely Misses Maple
In scarlet looked their best;
All balanced to their partners,
And gaily fluttered by;
The sight was like a rainbow
New fallen from the sky.

Then, in the rustic hollow,
At hide-and-seek they played,
The party closed at sundown,
And everybody stayed.
Professor Wind played louder;
They flew along the ground;
And then the party ended
In jolly "hands around."

What better way to celebrate the changing season than with a family craft time?

Take a walk around the streets, parks, forests and gardens of Waltham Forest and you will see a carpet of leaves, in all colours of yellow, orange, red and brown, all recently fallen and ready to be collected and made into fantastic things.

Explore the colours, shapes and patterns of the leaves together. Cut them up to make confetti, add them to glass jars filled with water to make natural snow globes or thread string through them to make autumn bunting.

My favourite thing to do with fallen leaves is turn them into animals using pens to draw faces. I sometimes start by reading ‘Leaf Man’ with my little ones to inspire us to create our own people out of leaves. ‘October’s Party’ is also a wonderful starting point to inspire creative images with leaves and twigs.

Here are some animals to try yourself.

Remember, only use the fallen leaves. The ones still on the tree should stay where they are until they are ready to drop.

Now head outside, collect your leaves and get crafting!

Caroline Ede is an Early-Years Consultant with an abundance of experience working with young people. She is the owner of The Castle Stay & Play, and Cook Me A Story.

Ingredients :

(all measurements are an approximation; to suit your taste!)

• Quinces

• Sugar (equal to weight of quinces)

• lemon peel (as much or as little as you’d like)
  

Directions:

1. Wash and oven bake the quinces for 20 min at 180°C to soften.

2. Once cool, peel, chop and core the baked quinces. Weigh and place in a large pan with 1:1 weight amount of sugar. Add some lemon peel.

3. Cover and simmer on the stove on low heat until all the sugar is dissolved. If the mixture is watery, uncover and continue to simmer for at least a couple of hours or until the colour has changed to a dark orange.

4. Once the mixture has turned a dark orange colour, blitz in a food processor and transfer to a container (silicone works well). Allow to set in the fridge.

5. When cold, cut into cubes and enjoy!

Notes:

For long term storage, you can freeze the membrillo in containers

Another boo-untiful month

As Autumn progresses and makes its presence ever more noticeable, we still find ourselves with many edible delights to gather in October. From the last of the tomatoes, beetroot, salad leaves, courgettes and their cheerful flowers, to broccoli, mizuna and the patiently-awaited salsify; the garden just keeps on giving.

As always, everything we sow, grow and gather is shared amongst our lovely volunteers and beyond. We’re also having a think on how we might offer our harvests to people in the local community who perhaps can’t attend our Gardening Club on Saturdays when we typically have offerings.

Have you spotted any particularly smart solutions for unmanned food collection points? Let us know in the comments below and help us share our local produce even more efficiently.

Mulch mulch mulch

It’s time to prepare the ground and our perennials for the colder season to come. This means mulch - and lots of it!

Earlier in the month it was all hands on deck as we cleared the meadow and re-laid the path. We received an impressive pile of fresh woodchip and leaf mulch from the lovely Hilda, and a number of kind volunteers to make the work possible!

Elsewhere we used our home-made compost to dress the beds and keep their inhabitants warm for the winter.

Time will tell if our protective efforts are successful. Being a London-based garden, we tend to be temperately blessed, and don’t tend to endure too terrible a winter. We look forward to seeing fresh green shoots emerge from under their mulch duvets next year.

Talking need not be scary

On 12th October, one of our volunteers - Ysr - hosted our first “Tea & Talk” for World Mental Health Day.

It was a wonderful opportunity to stop, rest and connect with people, and discover more about one-another through conversation. We enjoyed coming together to speak openly, share stories, and listen with kindness.

Leyton Boundary Garden is a place of inclusion, calm, joy, respite, and healing for so many people with so many experiences. We hope to continue Tea & Talk as a new tradition, and encourage everyone to always feel safe in our community space.

Are you Sycamore leaves? Make them mouldy!

Leyton Boundary Garden, if you are not yet aware, is partially situated beneath a breathtakingly large Sycamore tree. This means that come Autumn, almost every part of the front half of the garden is covered in leaves at varying stages of decay. The sweeping never ends.

Ordinarily, we would of course just use these free leaves for our cold compost heaps. But this year, we thought we would experiment a little too. So, after a tumble down a Pinterest hole, Jenny and Alex decided to have a go at making leaf mould containers.

The idea was simple enough: create a circular(ish) shape from chicken wire, join the ends and secure with bamboo canes or wooden batons. The implementation was naive, and the stability a little dubious. But the finished result was a beautiful, slightly wonky success. The wire baskets had a Tardis-like quality, gulping up leaf matter and demanding ever more!

In a while, we shall - hopefully - have some fantastic leaf mulch to garnish and feed the garden. The excitement is real! Until then, the structures have become an interesting visual addition to the landscape at Leyton Boundary Garden.

Park planter re-Vamp

As well as the main garden site, Leyton Boundary Garden volunteers also take care of the plants in the containers in the adjacent children’s play park on Brewster Road. Being mainly perennials, around this time of year they usually need a really solid cut back to remain healthy, and it was time to get the job done.

Jenny took on the work of giving them some tough love and attention. It was a great opportunity to clean up anything that hadn’t fared well over the summer. The full width of the walkways between the planters was reinstated, and large amounts of mugwort, lavender and sage were brought back to the main garden for hanging and drying in preparation for their many uses.

A good haircut later, the plants can breathe a little better and are ready for a rest before the next growing season.

Later, we’ll fill in some of the spaces with new pollinator-friendly perennial additions donated from Jenny’s own garden, and re-home a number of different strawberry varieties from the Boundary Garden.

Which craft?

Very soon we’ll be launching a new section, “Little Gardeners”. Check it out for seasonal craft ideas from Leyton Boundary Garden volunteer and Early-Years Consultant, Caroline Ede.

Caroline runs The Castle Stay & Play at the nearby Leyton Sports Ground, and works with Kids Kitchen, creating delicious food using seasonal produce. With a wealth of experience in Early-Years education, we’re very excited to have her share some fun and easy activities for the little ones to get stuck into!

We’ll be kicking off with some wonderful poetry-inspired Autumn craft ideas. Great for keeping the kids exploring the outdoors whatever-the-weather, and enjoying this delightfully vibrant time of year. Watch this space!

Pride of Chutney

It’s been a weird year for tomatoes. With all the green tomatoes still hanging on, it seems like time for some green tomato recipes!

With that in mind, we hope you will enjoy our new section “Garden Cookbook”.

Check out this beloved riff on an old classic from Delia Smith, a family favourite:

And how about some Fried Green Tomatoes too? It’s not called a Southern classic for nothing!

Tunnel vision (salad planting)

The chill of late-October meant it was high-time to say goodbye to our flagging tomato plants in the polytunnel. Our hard-working volunteers rolled up their sleeves, collected the remaining harvest and dug up the old plants ready for our new Winter crops.

Preparing the beds for their new inhabitants was a simple but important task, raking over the earth and scattering a fresh layer of compost. The peppers and Basil plants are still very happy in their sheltered Winter beds, so there they’ll stay for the time being.

Alex will be leading the winter sowing in the polytunnel over the next few weeks. Hopefully soon we’ll see more of those first gutsy little green shoots again!

Oh Mycelium!

Aside from producing crops and companion plants, Leyton Boundary Garden is fierce about growing not only organically and sustainably, but with biodiversity in mind. We are lucky to have agency over such a delightful plot in the middle of an urban landscape, so we recognise the responsibility to support our deteriorating ecological systems.

As a gardening crew, we’re used to seeing mycelium networks (the microscopic fungal thread network that's part of a fungus) occupying fertile medium, like compost. It’s a delight to spot all the various fungi that can erupt across the garden in different locations! Most of all, it’s usually a sign of a healthy, balanced ecosystem.

Did you know..?

• Mycelium breaks down plant material and toxins like plastic and oil, making them available for other organisms. 

• Mycelium helps plants absorb nutrients and water from the soil, and can make plants more resistant to pathogens. 

• Mycelium helps create fertile soil and reduce erosion.

• Mycelium helps plants share nutrients and communicate with chemical signals. 

• Mycelium can help trees become more drought-resistant. 

• Mycelium can clean groundwater of pollutants and contaminants. 

• Mycelium is a food source for many soil invertebrates. 

Fungi is amazing! However, please remember to take great care when exploring and handling mushrooms and other fungi due to the risk of toxicity, especially for children and pets. If you’re not 100% sure, don’t touch!

Creepy and Crawly

And finally, while the land is getting quieter and it’s inhabitants settle down for the cold months ahead, it’s a fantastic time to think about how we can monitor our biodiversity in the garden and make plans to support and strengthen the resident ecosystem when it wakes up in the Spring.

Earlier in the month, Jenny attended Organic Lea’s Waltham Wild Biodiversity Workshop at their Hawkwood site, alongside members of other local garden communities. They learned about conducting field research, data analysis, and how our locally-conducted ecological reviews feed into national data.

Utilising apps such as iRecord and iNaturalist, anyone anywhere can help monitor the wildlife around them, in every form it takes. What’s even better, is that these sightings are then verified by experts and submitted to a national database — helping to inform and shape national ecology policies.

Anyone can get started and help make a difference. We’ll be working with guidance from Organic Lea to conduct a pattern of site reviews on a seasonal basis at Leyton Boundary Garden. Who knows what wonders are out there, amongst the veg?

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