The greenhouse has been a blaze of colour with our narcissi and hyacinths blooming. The month has started with earth moving and ground clearance. Joy of joys, we have won a prestigious county-wide competition and have a 28’ by 14’ poly tunnel on its way to us!

We submitted a proposal for a project which would benefit our community and encourage young people to take part in growing food. The winning entry (us!) gets to implement their project, receiving £500 towards the cost. Also we will receive another £100 in gardening vouchers when the project is complete. The competition was ‘Use The Plot’, organised by the Edible Essex Project which is part of the Rural Community Council of Essex. The poly tunnel will cost another £600 on top of the prize, so we are busy fund raising to boost our funds. We strongly believe that our gardening club should be as self-supporting as possible. 

Our planned expansion will encourage others to join our club, and also allow us to invite our feeder primary schools to work on joint projects. I hope that our work will prove to be an asset to our town and ‘Halstead In Bloom’ as they compete in the ‘Anglia In Bloom’ competition.

Preparing our poly tunnel site has given us another project. We have dug up enough concrete and bricks to make a rather large rock garden! We are also looking to make our own hanging baskets and planters (time, energy, and wooden pallet supply permitting).

Look out for us in the town park on Mayday bank holiday. We will have a stall to publicise the club.

Mr S Pittuck - Gardening Club Leader