





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?