Summer at the Polytunnel

During the summer holidays we ran our second year of twice weekly gardening sessions at the polytunnel on Tulse Hill estate.
We made the site COVID 19 compliant with PPE (masks, gloves and hand sanitiser) signage and social distancing.

We have a regular group of volunteers and they continued to attend. We additionally attracted up to 6 new participants per session. We held soil mixing, seed and bulb planting, potting on and raised bed workshops.
We also worked with the local adventure playground staff and attendees to design and make a new welcome sign for the polytunnel.

Some of the sessions were less well attended than others (a few rainy days made social distancing problematic) but overall a lot of good work was achieved and a lot of new growing skills were passed on. A few of the summer group have continued to attend our regular volunteer sessions to, which is a great outcome.

We still have some bulbs left to plant and are holding additional sessions to take advantage of the warm weather. We hope the bulbs will brighten up the spring next year.

Funding for the summer sessions was provided by Thrale Almshouses with many thanks. This is the only funding the project has received this year so it has been critical in keeping the project going, The polytunnel continues to be a great addition to the estate.

The project was run by Vinnie O’Connell from New Leaf Educational Gardens.