I am very pleased to report that we are entering a period of abundance in The Garden. It seems like there are offers, donations and assistance steadily coming our way and we have been genuinely touched by some of the contributions. So I thought I would let you know about what has been happening.
We were greeted this morning at the garden with not one but
three gifts from Paul, one of the lovely team of park rangers. As we entered
the garden, planting of two large pear trees was underway. They will make a welcome addition to the
space and the generosity did not stop there...Paul has had made our very own
metal bread paddle to take loaves out of our brand new clay oven which has been
built in the fire zone. Anna has been
slaving away at making the oven all week – with the help of some new friends: a
group of local teenagers who have been getting stuck in.
But the final of the three gifts, and the one which gave us
the biggest cause for cheering was the installation of a tap in both the
growing zone and the fire zone. No
longer will we have to schlep buckets of water through the play park to get to
the beds. Although to be fair with the recent soggy spells we haven’t had to do
too much watering, but we can still hope for sunshine to come in the summer months
(fingers crossed!)
We also have to thank some other people for their wonderful
offerings: Lily (aged 8) for writing a poem for us, Veronika for her chilli
plant seedling grown at home, Colleen for yet more cake (I really need to get
the recipe for the chocolate and banana loaf), Rimni for offering to teach us
how to make a traditional curry and the 20 volunteers from Liberty who helped
us prepare the garden for our first event this weekend – Velela! Pop-up
Festival.
We look forward to seeing you there.
Aha! The banana and chocolate cake is a modification of this recipe by Dan Lepard, with the ginger replaced by the same amount of chopped dark chocolate. The ginger version is lovely too, Easy peasy delicious!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/apr/27/banana-cake-recipes-dan-lepard
Thank you so much for posting the recipe Colleen. Now I have to try it our for myself! Fingers crossed it comes out as delicious as yours ;)
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