We had a wonderful time at the Garden's first Pumpkin Carving event! Families joined us to get creative on our homegrown giant pumpkins and made a fantastic job of it. From scary faces to a sillouette of a dog, the kids (and adults!) had a great time decorating the pumpkins. They also helped to harvest the pumpkin seeds to be dried ready for next year to plant and all the pumpkin flesh was saved and given to our wicked witch chef who cooked us up a very tasty lunch!
A huge thanks goes to Claire McEvilly for entertaining us with her wicked witch costume and cooking a superb pumpkin soup and pumpkin curry! Also to Dina for the pumpkin pie, Pat for the cake and Paul for lending us the gas cooker! And of course, Starbucks in Leatherhead for the generous donation of 100 paper cups to serve the soup and curry in. They were recycled into the compost bin!
Due to so many people turning up we also got the majority of the fruit cage floor dug up. Well done everybody :)

Try your hand at composting! Surrey Waste Partnership have loads of information to get you started on their website. The Garden have gots loads of tips and tricks from this website!
Give it a go!

http://www.surreywastepartnership.org.uk/

We were very fortunate for this continuing great weather to allow us to get lots of things done in the Garden.
The pepper beds were cleared and cauliflowers were harvested whilst strawberries and onions were planted.
Beds were topped up with soil and turned over, weed control matting was added to beds that needed it and a start was made on taking the grass off the fruit cage floor. With everybody helping we think the fruit cage could be done in one weekend. Lots of fingers crossed for more dry weather to get this job done!
The grass was mown for hopefully the last time this year. The shed was decorated by the girls with the pictures we used on our display boards for the Street Party and the Farnham Maltings. We didn't want the pictures to go to waste!
We are all looking forward to next weekend's Pumpkin Carving event. Some of us have decided we will be in fancy dress! This is totally optional!!!!
Hope to see you next weekend!

We hosted a community team building day for the Highways Agency Major Projects Department. A HUGE thank to the team that joined us! They managed to remove and safely store the fruit cage netting for the winter, mowed the grass before it got wet again, removed the seeds from the beans and sunflower heads, shifted soil and topped up the beds. The day was finished off with a cup of tea in the shed and a friendly chat. See photos here!

Some quotes from the day:
"It was certainly the most enjoyable and worthwhile team awayday we have had for some time."
"We had an extremely enjoyable time and a number of said they would like to do it again in the future!!"
"A lovely cup of tea at the end of the session was the icing on the cake!!"

Sunday
Great weather again!
More work was done on the bench for the Garden. We had time to investigate the other Making Surrey stalls and put Leatherhead Community Garden on the clay map in the room next door to us!
Lots of tidying up at the end of the day but it was worth it. Thank you so much to Making Surrey especially Ruth, Belinda and Jane. What a fantastic partnership! Looking forward to working with you all again soon.....!

On Thursday night ex pupils from West Hill School, who attend Back to the Future cookery lessons, decorated 205 cakes for a cake sale to raise money for the Community Garden.  They were justifiably proud of the results and had the opportunity of practising and mastering new skills.  After two hours of handling butter cream, things did get a little sticky though!

On Friday Claire McEvilly, BTTF Tutor, arranged a cake sale at West Hill School and raised a magnificent £84 which equates to 168 cakes, not bad for a school with only 92 pupils!  The remainder will be taken to the Farnham Maltings on Saturday to be eaten at the after event party.  They are kindly donating some money for the cakes which should boost the amount to at least £100.

To start the Arts Alive month of celebration, a street party was held on Leatherhead High Street in the glorious sunshine. Leatherhead Community Garden were invited down along with Making Surrey (the project funding all the beautiful woodwork) to take over an abandoned shop for the day. And what an amazing building we had! Take a look at the photos of the shop in the gallery!
We produced weaved baskets and bug houses on the street whilst talking to the public promoting all the work we do. And most importantly, giving directions to where we are based! It was great to see the support of brand new volunteer members in town. Thank you to you all!
There were also dancers and musicians entertaining the public up and down the high street along with other organisations promoting their work. Panto characters could also be seen! A lovely community feel in town today.
Back in the garden, all the beds have been de-weeded, turned over and the old plant matter is in the compost bin. The pumpkins were taken off the plant and put into storage in the shed, beans were picked (the bean plant is STILL going!), carrots were dug up and cucumbers were twisted off. We are ready for next week! Winter vegetables now have a place in the garden :) Thank you so much for the hard work put in during such a hot day!
Kayleigh :)