wildlife | St Anns Allotments

Posts tagged ‘wildlife’

An Escape from the Office

STAA staff, trustees and volunteers have been on two learning events in recent days.

On Tuesday 30^th September a group of nine staff and trustees visited Hill Holt Wood in Lincolnshire. This was made possible thanks to a grant from Locality through their Knowledge and Skills Exchange. Hill Holt Wood is a social enterprise with its base in an ancient Lincolnshire woodland. Although somewhat different to a large allotment site in St Anns, there are many similarities between the two organisations and our respective sites which we were able to explore. We received a warm welcome and introductory presentation from Nigel and his team. We then broke for lunch, followed by an afternoon tour of the woods and training areas before catching the bus back to Nottingham. We left with plenty to ponder about how we can make better use of the allotment visitor centre and generating potential future income streams.

Afternoon tour of the wood.

Allotment gardeners walking around the kitchen garden at Hill Holt Wood.

On Wednesday 1^st October, Michael took a small group of our heritage display garden volunteers to have a look round the walled garden at Clumber Park. The idea was to take inspiration from the ornamental borders, vegetable beds and orchards and see what ideas we could bring back to Oliver’s Plot. The sun shone as if it were midsummer and the gardens still looked great for so late in the year. The long herbaceous borders were in full bloom and buzzing with insects. We were particularly impressed by the national collections of local apple varieties and rhubarb. There may be some tweaks to Oliver’s Plot as a result of the visit – come back and visit STAA in 2015 to see if you can spot them!

A step over apple tree

Victorian lantern cloches, seakale together with forcing pots, and trained peach trees.

October 8, 2014 at 3:50 pm Leave a comment

Come and celebrate the harvest with us this Saturday, 11am – 4pm!

Entrance on Ransom Road.

Tours

Heritage tours: 11:30am, noon and 2pm

Wildlife tour: 1:30pm

Workshops

Drumming workshop: 11:30am – 1:30pm

Willow weaving: Noon – 1pm and 3pm – 4pm

Morris dancing: 1pm, followed by a performance for the Lord Mayor at 2pm

Throughout the day: Children’s archaeological dig and peg work at the STAA table

And there’s more!

The burial of our time capsule overseen by the Lord Mayor at approximately 2pm

Apple pressing at the Community Orchard

Produce competitions – Only 20p to enter

Food from Beccy’s Global Kitchen

Tomato tasting

Frank Shelton the ‘Owl Man’ with Kim the Barn Owl

Produce displays

Homemade cakes and refreshments

Stalls and community information

September 3, 2014 at 3:36 pm Leave a comment

Summer Newsletter 2014

Our summer edition of the newsletter for plot holders at St Anns Allotments is now available! Please click on the picture below to read the full copy.

August 13, 2014 at 10:03 am Leave a comment

What’s on at St Anns Allotments

There’s a lot for allotment holders to get involved in over the coming weeks…

You may have seen posters around site and lots of activity on Facebook leading up to our Wildlife Weekend, which is kicking off this evening with a bat walk. The bat walk is fully booked, but take a look at what’s on over the weekend, there are plenty of activities to join in with! You don’t have to be a plot holder to come along, so feel free to spread the word!

Also coming up we are inviting St Anns Allotment holders to enter one of our annual allotment competitions! There are four categories to choose from, judging will take place during National Allotment Week and prizes will be presented at our Harvest Celebration event in September. Please get in touch if you would like to enter.

Next week the neighborhood policing team will be holding an allotment beat surgery at the Visitor Centre. If you would like to discuss security on site or need some advice, this is a great opportunity. Please see below for details.

With the holidays coming up, we’ve got lots going on at the Community Orchard. The activities are free, fun and your kids will love them!

After the success of our last pruning and grafting workshops, we have decided to hold two summer pruning and apple tree budding workshops in August. Please get in touch if you would like to book. For details and prices, please look at the poster below.

If that’s not enough to be getting on with, we are still running our heritage walks on the last Wednesday of every month (until September). The tours start at 1:30pm and we suggest a donation of £2. Booking is essential, as places are limited. There will also be a one off ‘Heritage Open Day’ tour on Thursday 11th September at 1:30pm.

July 18, 2014 at 1:06 pm Leave a comment

Spring Blossom Day at St Anns Allotments!

Come and celebrate the spring with us at our Blossom Day event!

There’ll be fun for all the family with stalls, a drumming workshop, a glass painting workshop, tours of the site, self-guided walks and poppy planting for World War One remembrance. You’ll also be able to wander around open gardens including the Ecoworks Community Garden, the Heritage Display Garden as well some allotments! Refreshments will be available.

May 8, 2014 at 11:06 am Leave a comment

Gardeners’ Newsletter Spring 2014

The Spring newsletter is now ready! Please click on the front page below to read it.

April 16, 2014 at 4:05 pm Leave a comment

The RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch

The RSPB are holding their Big Garden Birdwatch this weekend. If you could spend an hour on your plots or garden at home during the weekend and count the birds you see, the RSPB would love to hear what species you have seen. For further details please take a look at their website.

If you are an allotment holder at St Anns Allotments, please also let us know what birds you’ve spotted on your plots and we’ll enter it into our wildlife database!