Saturday, 3 August 2019

St Raphael's Edible Garden - the transformative power of community gardening revealed

The site May 2015
August 2015
Pride after planting seeds September 2015
Constructing the pond September 2015
It was lovely to visit the St Raphael's Edible Garden, one of Sufra NW London's amazing projects today. The garden not only provides vegetables and fruits for the food bank and Sufra's cooking activities, but is itself a therapeutic oasis for the local community.

I have included the images above  that I took on a visit early in the projectso you can judge what has been achieved in just four years by the workers, hundreds of volunteers and local community.  This is how the Edible Garden looked today - from a piece of derelict land to this!

The teaching tipi
Inside the polytunnel
Social Space The garden is open to the public Wednesday to Friday 10am to 4pm where you can go and relax and have a free cup of tea.

There is a Growing Club  taster-session every Wednesday from 10am-4pm where you can try your hand at a range of gardening activities.

Regular Gardening Volunteering takes place Monday to Friday with morning and afternoon sessions. Free but registration required,

Artisanal Workshops are held on the first Thursday of every month during term time and run from 4.30pm to 6.30pm - creative projects for all the family. Registration required,

Growing Academy - various dates. Accredited horticultural course that teaches young people about plants, soil, flowers, vegetables and growing. Free but registration required.

 Corporate Volunteering and Team Building  Companies/organisations can come and volunteer for the day helping to maintain  the garden through DIY projects. Enquiry for details and fees.

More information on these activities:

admin@sufra-nwlondon.org.uk
020 3441 1335
160 Pitfield Way NW10 0PW


EDITOR'S NOTE: The St Raphael's Estate is due to be either refurbished or demolished and re-developed with some private housing. I hope Brent Council will recognise the need to preserve the Edible Garden whatever the eventual decision on the future of the estate.
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1 comment:

  1. Jaine Lunn4 August 2019 at 15:20

    This a fantastic job done by Sufra and partners in St Raphaels. Wouldn't it be nice if we could do the same in Wembley on the site of old Coplands School now Ark Elvin. It would be great to see this as a park or edible garden there is plenty of space and scope to give back public land to the community, instead of more ugly flats.

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