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Catnapping by the Polish memorial at Redbraes

What a difference a year makes. It is hard to believe that the view has changed so much since a group of enthusiastic volunteers started work on this site last spring.  Now Redbraes Community Garden is about to spring into action for a new growing season. Come and join the team on Saturday 21 March at 11 am when the hut will be open for refreshments.

Here’s the message from garden committe member, Julian Sian:

” Why not come along to your garden and help it on its way with potatoes, spring bulbs, and ideas. For the kids, there is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to paint. Bring vegetable seeds if you can because we need more!”

And in case you need any more inspiration, here are a few scenes of last year’s hard work which turned a figment of the imagination into a flourishing garden.

March 2008 the plan on paper. The design by Rebecca Govier in response to ideas from local residents.

May 2008 plans become action. Becky ( on the left) and Simon Daley (on the right), get digging after winning the lottery. (Simon is a local community police officer and a driving force of the garden).

July 2008: still digging. Young volunteers join the work force preparing for the open day

Time for a teabreak: another broken nail?

The garden grows with generous gifts of time and materials. On the left, Simon receives paint from Euan of Leyland Paints, and on the right   Shremeck, Lukas  and Pawel line up to help create the Polish memorial at the gateway.

Come and create another colourful year at Redbraes.

The ceremony, which will be attended by the Polish Consul General, Aleksander Dietkow, and Mark Lazarowicz, the MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, is the outcome of many months discussion with members of the Polish community. And some serious hard work.

Having secured two huge pieces of sandstone for the memorial, Simon Daley the local community policeman, set off for Growmore, the Fife plant nursery with Becky Govier, the garden designer.

Polish volunteers will then join them to plant up the ground by the entrance to the garden before the memorial stones arrive. Meanwhile Przemek Dudarewicz (Shremeck) Lukas Dabros and Pawel Gucik have already been to help with some of the really heavy work [seen here on the right]. And Simon is not ruling out the chances of finding a statue of Voytek (or Wojtek, the Polish troops second world war mascot who ended his days in Edinburgh Zoo).

“As usual I am pretty confident things will work out!” emails Simon, who has indeed proved to be a formidable force in securing gifts, sponsorship and voluntary hard labour, so look out for Voytek/Wojtek the bear (listen to this Polish radio story of how he was found by troops in Iran during the second world war).

Simon points out that the sandstone memorial recognises the long connection between Scotland and Poland and celebrates the contribution made by Poles here in Scotland and the many thousands of Scots who have settled in Poland. Servicemen’s organisations and community associations will be there and the public will be very welcome on Sunday 9 November at 3pm.

Pictured below: one of the latest additions to Redbraes, the shed built by Davey, Julian and Simon (seen in the doorway with his daughter Erin). Or as Becky calls it, “our beautiful glow-in the dark shed” – the paint was a special offer but it could catch on!

Autumn is going out with a blaze in Redbraes Community Garden. Next on the calendar is the bonfire party on Saturday 8 November from 6pm, and Becky says there’s digging and planting to do if you want to work up an appetite first. See below for details.

Looking at borders full of flowers and vegetables it is hard to believe that only a few months ago this flourishing garden was a patch of unused land covered with weeds. In much less than 12 months the energetic Redbraes Community Garden team has raised a total of £10,000 and (even more impressive) the kind of community involvement you just can’t put a price on.

The result shows in new developments just about every week. Julian and Davie have hardly finished building the new blue shed before Simon arrives with plans for the Polish memorial garden and border at the gateway. (More news about that soon, all we can say right now is that there is a lot of digging, building and planting to do before the opening ceremony in two weeks and two days time!)

Meanwhile, the community garden committee are collecting wood and donations for the bonfire and barbecue on Saturday 8 November from 6pm. “We hope you can come along,” says Becky, “Please bring along your own refreshments and anything you would like to cook on the barbeque.”

“And if you fancy getting muddy please call by a little earlier and help us with a gardening session between 3-6pm when we will be planting eight espalier apple trees amongst other things.”

Here’s an apple tree they planted earlier…

Grassroots, the Zimbabwean band, bring the festival spirit to Redbraes

“I keep smiling thinking about it,” says Becky and her pictures tell the rest of the story. After months of hard work Redbraes community garden opened to the public on Saturday with a party that even the sun enjoyed.

I wasn’t able to get to the barbecue but when I dropped by earlier in the day I could tell it was going to be a good party. That didn’t stop the hard work of course. While PC Simon Daley and helpers put up the gazebo, Becky Govier, the garden designer, was surrounded by volunteers busy digging a border for all the plants donated by the Botanics (see Police raid Botanics).

Since then the hard work has continued with Simon returning to finish seating and secure water supplies. But for that sunny Saturday afternoon there was time to relax and enjoy the garden. Becky sums up the general mood:

“The day was magic. More volunteers came forward yesterday and a neighbour has been in touch to ask for help reclaiming his garden to create a vegetable patch. One neighbour donated an attractive little conifer to the cause. As a result of the event we now have a greenhouse, gas BBQ, lavender plants, new volunteers, a potential source of funding and more friends.”

Volunteers of all ages come to lend a hand for Redbraes open day

time for a break in the outdoor classroom area of the garden designed by Becky.

a party to remember

Caught greenhanded! PC Simon Daley (that’s him on the right), raids the nursery of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh – with a lot of help from nursery supervisor Pete Brownless (that’s him in the middle) and PC Ian Penicuik.

It’s all in a good cause, of course. After months of digging, building and planting, Simon is helping Redbraes Community Garden prepare for a party on Saturday’s Open Day. They hope you will come and join them for a barbecue between 3-6pm. And if you can lend a barbecue for the occasion you will be specially welcome!

By then, weather permitting, Simon’s team will have finished the new path into the garden but if rain stops work you will see signs to lead you through a friendly backgreen.

Redbraes Community Garden are celebrating the results of months of hard work, not to mention the success of winning £10,000 from the Big Lottery Fund Breathing Places Fund and support from Edinburgh city council. But though money matters it’s people who make gardens grow.

Led by Simon, the local community policeman, volunteers of all ages have been hard at work behind the houses of Redbraes. On an almost hidden site running down to the Water of Leith they have been turning a hard landscaping plan into reality: with raised beds for growing vegetables, an outdoor classroom, a wildlife area and a bonfire circle.

As garden designer Becky Govier says, “We have a great team of volunteers. This is the first community garden I have designed and I have found it incredibly rewarding”.

Food, drink and plants for the Open Day have all been donated by local businesses with perhaps just a little gentle persuasion from their local policeman. Having picked up the generous donation of plants from the Botanics, Simon went on to collect a box of white tiles from B&Q (“which they sold me for a pound – thanks to my colleague Lee Jack who donated said pound!”), £100 of free food from Scotmid and soft drinks for 100 people from Beetroot Blue.

Just one thing missing. Says Simon: “I’ve yet to source a BBQ and anyone who can lend one for the day would be much appreciated?!?!”

Meet some of the volunteers making Redbraes Community Garden grow

Community garden essentials: plants, enthusiastic volunteers and a nice mulch of money!

“The garden will become a focus for community social events but will also provide a quiet place for people to work, exercise or simply take some fresh air in beautiful surroundings.” Simon Daley, Community Beat Officer

Congratulations to Redbraes! Simon Daley sent the good news in a short email which got straight to the point: “I’ve just taken a call from the press office at the big lottery fund to confirm that we have been successful in our bid for £10k!”

That was 3 June. Since then Redbraes Residents Association and volunteers of Redbraes Community Garden have had more good news. Leith Neighbourhood Partnership will cover the cost of building paths in the site now being developed as a community garden.

“I would like to say a huge thank you,� says Simon who, as the local community police officer, has played an essential part in helping to create the vision for a community garden among the houses of Redbraes housing estate. The £10,000 grant from the Breathing Places programme of the Big Lottery Fund means that vision now becomes reality.

Since our report last month, garden designer Becky Govier, has also had offers of voluntary help to dig and plant up the beautifully peaceful area of ground rolling down to the Water of Leith.

Now over to Simon to explain why the garden is so important: “The £10,000 grant will allow us to create a true community resource in the centre ofEdinburgh. The garden project, with its focus on community involvement will influence how the local community interact with each other and their natural environment.

“Education is a crucial part of our aims and the design by Becky Govier of Greenedge Garden Designs has cleverly incorporated an outdoor classroom which will double as a meeting place. The ability to grow healthy foods will be available to young children through our work with local nurseries, schools and youth groups and the garden’s design will allow all members of the community to work and socialise together.

“The garden will become a focus for community social events but also provide a quiet place for people to work, exercise or simply take some fresh air in beautiful surroundings.�

Well done Redbraes!

An outdoor classroom, a haven for wildlife, and room to grow fruit and vegetables: this is the plan on the drawing board for Redbraes Community Garden. Now the organising committee just need some help to make it happen on the ground.

While Persevere Community Garden is taking shape, something equally inspiring is happening not far away. Among the houses of Redbraes there are plans to turn a hidden green space into a thriving community garden where people of all ages can come together to grow food and flowers on the banks of the Water of Leith

This is the vision of local community police officer Simon Daley backed by members of Redbraes Residents Association. Local residents, who have already built the Park Centre in Redbraes Park, met in October 2007 to pool ideas for a community garden that will offer an outdoor classroom for local school children, a haven for wildlife and allotments for fruit and vegetables.

Since then the community garden steering group has lost no time. Garden designer Rebecca Govier used residents’ ideas to draw up plans making the most of the sheltered site visited by herons, ducks and the occasional kingfisher. The City of Edinburgh Council has agreed to build garden paths and Simon Daley has applied to Breathing Places, the Lottery fund that encourages local people to create space for wildlife, nature and community involvement.

“It’s ambitious,â€? says Davie Thomson, chair of Redbraes Residents Association, “but if we all work together we can show how to create a wee bit of sanity in the every day hustle and bustle of city life.”

That’s why Davie, Simon and the rest of the steering group are inviting local volunteers of all ages to get involved. To find out more, they say you are welcome to pop into the Redbraes Park Centre where you can see the plans and details. Your opinions and help are welcome too!

Telephone 0131 467 3879 or e-mail redbraes@blueyonder.co.uk