4H Community Garden

The 4H Hops, Herbs, Health and Happiness Community Garden, Whittington Park

Organisation: Whittington Park Community Association

Address: Yerbury Road, Archway, N19 4RS

Key People:

• Shan Burgess, Assistant Parks Manager, Islington Parks

• Ann Mason, Community Centre Manager

• Alex Schmidit, Community Centre Elders Lunchtime Coordinator

• Frederique Delacoste, Volunteer Gardener

Achieving:

Lottery Outcomes 2: The wellbeing of low-income families is improved

Lottery Outcome 3: Adults and young people with low-level skills will report an inprovement in their lifeskill

More about 4H Community Garden at We Can Grow

History

Whittington Park Community Centre runs a popular elders lunch club.

Meals for the lunch club are cooked in the centre’s community café where everyone can have a cheap healthy hot meal and there is time for social activities before and after eating.

The centre had no outside gardening space apart from a few raised boxes where they grow a few herbs and flowers (and the occasional courgette).

There is much research about the benefits of and improved health and well-being from being outdoors, socialising, gardening, growing food and being in touch with nature, so the centre wanted to increase the gardening opportunities for its elderly users and to grow fresh food for the café.

In early spring 2017 Whittington Park opposite the Community Centre, let the Community Centre Lunchtime Co-ordinator Alex use a little space along the edge of the park opposite the community cafe for gardening and growing some food as part of the Over 55’s Men’s Social Group and the Lunchtime activities for elders

Before the community garden was developed

Alex and a few of the elders made a good start to get growing but it was difficult as most of the older users struggled to garden at ground level, there was no where for them to sit down to take a rest, there were dogs running through the growing space and people kept walking over the plants as the space was a through cut across the park.

Then members of the Men’s Group said that they would like to grow hops to make beer. So Alex contacted the Octopus We Can Grow team and asked if we could provide any workshops on growing hops.

Alex Schmidt, Elders Lunchtime Coordinator, explains the project

Octopus organised and ran well attended workshops on growing hops led by one of our specialist sessional freelancers who happened to be an expert in hops growing and beer brewing. Participation and enthusiasm was really positive. People really got talking and thinking about what were their possibilities for more growing and gardening and how to get involved!

Our community-led engagement process:

During summer and autumn 2017 Alex and Octopus ran community-led engagement and consultation activities with the lunch club and centre users, local people using the park, the local school, parents, the after school club, local under 5’s nursery and Islington’s Green Space Parks; to explore ways to maximise use of the outside space in the park and what people would want from it and what was needed to create something accessible for everyone.

From this was born the idea of the 4H ‘Hops, Herbs, Health and Happiness’ Community Garden.

We used a big picture of a flower and a tree and we cut out leaves of cardboard, and we asked people at different times to draw or write things that they wanted from a garden space / growing space on the leaves and to attach to the flower or tree.

We also did a range of different picture boards show casing different aspects of what we thought we could do, we especially showed pictures of a raised table top bed so that people could see how they could garden seated or standing up comfortably. We showed lovely vegetable, herbs, and flower pictures and we talked lots and lots about growing food for the community café. We talked about what could happen in the garden for older people and children.

We explored with the Council’s Parks manager what was possible and what was not in terms of creating the garden in a public space: how to balance the need to have a safe secure fenced area (dealing with the dogs and people trampling on plants) but to manage it so it was unlocked and an open access garden in keeping with the park.

There was lots of discussion on how to create a garden with a distinct visual identity

Four 4 key themes arose:

• benefits of intergenerational gardening

• growing food for the community café

• designing a garden that was useable for older frail and disabled people

• an open access at all times ‘garden’

What did we do

Ann Mason, Community Centre Manager, explains how the garden developed

Working in close partnership with Whittington Park Community Association and Islington Parks we created an intergenerational community garden, to bring local residents together, with a focus on enabling older frail and disabled people to be engaged in growing of hops, herbs, vegetables and flowers.

To make the 4H Community Garden idea a reality Octopus We Can Grow team supported Whittington Park Community Association to complete a funding application to the new Mayor of London’s Greener City Fund in September 2017

The funding application was successful In January 2018 and on a bitterly cold day in February 2018 work began to build the new 4h community garden.

The garden under construction

Building works was completed in late March 2018 in time for launching the new garden as part of Islington in Bloom in April 2018.

Between April to October 2018 Octopus ran regular ‘gardening’ workshops for different groups and participants. For some people it was the first time that had ever done any gardening and growing while for others it was learning how to share their skills and knowledge with each other.

Octopus also supported the Community Centre to recruit and training local gardening volunteers.

The first experiments - hops, herbs and wildflowers

What went well, what less so? Were there any unexpected consequences?

Alex Schmidt, Elders Lunchtime Coordinator, explains why hop are grown

The build of the garden was a positive partnership between Octopus and Parks Green Space Team making the most effective use of complimentary skills and resources.

Volunteers helped in building the garden.

Octopus, the Community Centre and Parks worked really well in collaboration to project manage the different stages of design, construction, volunteering, workshops, as we thought out and communicated about each stage together.

We missed a few things in the original design; we didn’t get the ground surface quite right and we didn’t think about a big notice board for communication / information. But with a little bit of additional fundraising we got this sorted.

Opening the new garden as part of an Islington-wide In Bloom Event was an added bonus and provided extra publicity.

The 4H garden is a relatively small compact space and so many people wanted to be involved that activities and events had to spread out on to the pavement and road.

The visual impact of the garden really worked well to attract, engage and promote interest amongst people passing by

Local people provided resources and plants for free.

The open access nature of the community garden raised concerns at the beginning in terms of the possibility of vandalism and theft. There has been no vandalism or theft to date.

Having a programme of structured workshops in place right from the start, which were well advertised to attract new people has worked well to attract new regular participants and also to draw in people on an impromptu basis as the site is so public.

The garden has thrived with the support and input of a group of key regular volunteers, many who accessed additional support from the Octopus Community Plant Nursery and our Volunteer Champions programme.

Key Lessons Learnt

Effective community-led consultation and engagement processes over a period of time produces fabulous ideas and motivates people to get involved

Recruitment and support for regular volunteers is key to maintaining and looking after the space as well as facilitating on going engagement

Creating year round interest so people don’t lose momentum and motivation

Partnership approaches produce good results and maximises skills and resources

Intergenerational gardening is fun and provides understanding of and appreciation between the generations

Impact

Reduced the isolation and loneliness of the many older people among the community centre membership and local community.

The community garden being designed to be inclusive for all the community; has become an educational tool for environmental literacy, offering horticultural therapy and introducing people to sustainable food growing.

People, especially the elderly, doing more physical outdoor activity, which is a known health benefit.

Environmental improvement and increased bio diversity to a corner of the park, which was bare grass, mud and a dog walking short cut.

We have packed a lot of growing into a little space; food, herbs, hops, flowers and a wild flower meadow. We have a range of different types of plants - herbaceous and perennials and shrubs so we can have year round interest.

Lots of lovely fresh vegetables and herbs grown and cooked in the community café providing cheap health nutritious meals for vulnerable people.

Here’s some of the fantastic vegetables grown in the garden

Creating a new garden space as a place to socialise; chat with and get to know neighbours and to enjoy being outdoors in touch with nature. One comment from a frail disabled elderly participant of the lunch club group was that ‘’sitting in the garden was now the only time she got to spend time outdoors in fresh air’’.

98% of all feedback from Elders Lunch Club members has been positive about their improved well-being through participation in social outdoor activities.

One elderly member at the 4H garden, Alfie, said that ‘when he started he didn’t really know what to do apart from keep watering but now he has really been taught how to do things and he loves looking after the garden’.

Comments from Elders Lunch Club Members during Summer Workshops

• I love all the wild flowers

• Its all such a success

• Its beautiful

• I do like to do watering and weeding

• Could have done with a bit more space

• You guys are always helping me a lot, thank you

• I feel better because the garden has changed the feel of the neighbourhood. Things are no longer getting trashed. Everything’s so much cleaner.

• I think the community feels a sense of achievement – they are interested and want to look after it.

• I have meet so many people in the neighbourhood in the past week.

• Its fulfilling to be able to try the food we have grown

• The workshop wasn’t what I expected but after a stressful few days it has helped me distress and meet new people

• Its great to have good conversations about food and growing for different times of year

Eight members of the regular 4H volunteer gardening group have said that they were ‘really happy and felt good growing food as it was getting used in the community café for everyone’.

Sustainability

Will it be able to keep going

Yes.

The Community Centre and Park are committed to the long term future of the garden including fundraising for resources.

Local volunteers are committed to regular gardening and growing. A volunteer coordinator leads on all aspects for growing and induction and supporting new volunteers.

Geographic location

See the Location map for all the main sites

Immediate network connections

See the Connections map for all connections between projects