Stirchley Apple Day Volunteering

We love our friends over at the Strichley Fruit and Nut Village and they decided to run a special apple themed day by Riverbrook in Stirchley this year and asked if we could pop along and do something. Naturally we said YES!

We brought all the equipment and our board members Alan and Stephy (and their wee one Lily) along to the event to help with a sustainable life style stall in support of their event.

We donated our equipment, time and produce to the event to create….. CHOCOLATE COVERED APPLES OF COURSE!

We didn’t sell them or pre make them – visitors were able to make their own on the day, and they were vegan friendly and dairy free to boot. Perfect!

We loved seeing everyone enjoy their apples from creation to eating and had a fantastic day! We have to finish mid day as we had quite simply RUN OUT OF EVERYTHING (We will have to double our stock next year!).

Tesco Bags of Help #BagsofHelp

Tesco teamed up with Groundwork to launch its community funding scheme,
which sees grants of up to £4,000, £2,000 and £1,000 – all raised from carrier bag sales in Tesco stores – being awarded to local community projects.

Bags of Help offers community groups and projects across the UK a share of
revenue generated from carrier bag sales in Tesco store. The public will now vote in store during November and December on who should receive the awards!

Our project will focus on installing bee friendly Warre hives in north birmingham allotments as community managed hives. These special types of hive allow for minimal bee disruption and maintenance allowing them to do their thing while still producing honey and wax for the community allotment they are installed in. 

We will help the local bee population, pollinate some allotment produce, produce local honey and wax and teach volunteers how to manage these hives for themselves and look after their bees.

If you think this sounds like a good idea, remember to vote for us in Tesco stores throughout November and December!

FREE TREES FOR SCHOOLS/GROUPS

A while ago Sustainable Life provided us with a bunch of UK tree seeds from the Woodland Trust. Our volunteer Cathy planted them and these lovely tree saplings are the result! These trees are destined for SCHOOLS including HE groups. It will be FIRST COME FIRST SERVED for the lot in Birmingham. SO if you are interested in making your own play forest get in touch!

 

s.adelaar@suslife.uk

Highbury Orchard FREE Cob Oven

On Sunday course leader Alan Bale visited Highbury Orchard and ran a course for FREE with the end result of Highbury Orchard receiving a Cob Oven at materials cost only. This was a completely unfunded donation of personal time and skills by Alan Bale to the good people at Highbury Orchard. It was a long day extending well into the evening but with the plucky help of a variety of Highbury Orchard volunteers the Orchard ended up with a pretty fab oven! Now we just need to wait for the oven to properly dry out and they can then begin test fires to condition the oven.

 

Good job to all involved!

View pictures of the event here: Facebook pictures post

Big Seed Giveaway

We are excited to be working with Forest Schools Birmingham CIC this year to deliver an exciting new project called “The Big Seed Giveaway”.

We are in the process of creating a wonderful learning resource portal online. Here you will find information on this project, how to sign up, discuss your project or milestones with other teachers, parents or carers, and download worksheets and resources to help make your growing project a success.

Best of all. IT’S TOTALLY FREE.

No catch.

Find out more: Veg Champions Project 2017

Sign up: Get a free seed pack

Download Worksheets: Totally FREE

 

Can you help our project? We are looking for help with plant pot donations (3 1/2 inch plastic pots). If you can donate any please let the Big Seed Giveaway Team know!

Raddlebarn Big Harvest Winners Update!

The school have now announced the winners of the Raddlebarn Big Harvest 2016 photo competition!

 

15073292_10154637290061774_2379375033414189846_n

 

Congratulations to the Shpanin, Forcer, Hunt and Pickering families of Raddlebarn! We have handed over the main prize and the runner up prize to the school. The school have added an extra two winners to the mix because they were so impressed with the entries they found it very difficult to choose! These winners will be getting additional mystery prizes from the school – we don’t knwo what the school picked out for them so do get in touch and let us know!

 

Happy Growing and see you in 2017 Raddlebarn 😀