Wimborne Community Garden set for a bumper year

Report and photos by Marilyn Barber newseditor@dorsetview.co.uk

Wimborne Community Garden was one of the big success stories for the town last year, and 2023 promises even better things.

On Friday 6 May 2022, the Wimborne First School site – which will become Beaucroft College – had an empty school field outside it, but by the end of Sunday 8 May, it had the clear signs of the development of a community garden.

On the afternoons of Saturday 7 and Sunday 8 May, many hard-working volunteers of all ages turned up and transformed the field into a garden with 12 dug beds for flowers, veggies, a large soft fruit area and a huge no-dig section.

And, despite the intense heat and lack of water last summer, the garden blossomed with the vegetable beds producing beans, tomatoes, potatoes, beetroot, sweetcorn, red onions, herbs, courgettes and lettuces which were shared with the Food Bank and Community Kitchen, neighbours and volunteers.

And on an exceptionally cold morning in January, I visited the site to find volunteers cheerfully at work.

Jane Benson, one of the core team of eight people, said she had been delighted with the immense support from the community.

“People are always giving us plants, so we have grown things we hadn’t intended to,” she said. “A volunteer gave us all the seeds we needed and we have now planted five fruit trees.”

Plans for this year include a paved area and raised flower beds, which will be accessible for wheelchairs and those who prefer not to bend too much.

John Marley built picket fences around the children's playhouse

MB Wilkes is supplying the slabs and they are being laid by Dan Higgs – both free of charge.

Funding for the raised flower beds has been supplied by the Simon Digby Charitable Trust.

A shed was donated by Wyatt Homes, a polytunnel provided by the Friends of Canford School and Year 9 pupils at QE School provided bird boxes. A greenhouse was also donated.

In addition to the volunteers, students from Beaucroft School come to the site on a Wednesday to plant bulbs and to shift slabs and soil.

In the future, there will be a café at the college, with produce supplied by the garden.

As the site was the school field, there is a pavilion in situ which, at present, is being used for storage. However, Jane hopes that in the future they will be able to run courses there.

“It’s all very exciting. We want to get a pizza oven, and of course we could use produce from the garden as toppings. This would mean we could all eat together which is very special.”

The site

Jane added that she knows that demand for food will most likely increase this year.

“But we will have a bigger harvest even than last year,” she said.

“People have really got behind our project and it was almost as though the Wimborne community was waiting to show how generous it could be – and there is something magical about a garden.”

The garden is to be found adjacent to Redcotts recreation ground and is always open on a Wednesday from 9am12.30pm, Friday from 2-4pm and Sunday from 2-4.30pm. People are very welcome to just turn up and help.

Pulford Publicity will be sponsoring the Community Garden until the end of 2023 with free publicity. If you would like to sponsor the garden contact wimbornecommunitygarden@ gmail.com.