Behind The Sunday Mirror – Riverside Hall Community Garden
As many are spending more and more time in your gardens over the coming weeks, we’re sure a few of you are looking to turn some abandoned area in your garden into a new little green haven. Riverside Hall community Garden, in Scotland, did just that when they turned their once demolition site into a luscious garden for the community to be proud of.
Situated near to the docks, the garden has built a biodiversity bed in the shape of the Waverley paddle steamer. For growing, there’s a purpose-built potting shed, a polytunnel providing plenty of fresh crops and a variety of raised beds. The extended polytunnel allows for growing more hothouse type vegetables and harvested yield has provided food not just for our gardeners but other community groups. Fit with a newly built classroom or training space, the garden is accessible for all and caters for both schools and nurseries as their designated growing space so the children can be made aware of vegetables growing and where it comes from.
The garden also boasts decorative features like a creative carving donated by a local. The sense of community is high as helpers offer help to locals in their own gardens and contribute their time as litter pickers in the surrounding community.
Jane Burdass, the professional gardener for the garden, said ‘Some gardeners are here for various reasons, social isolation, food poverty, mental health issues or perhaps in recovery. A garden growing space can help many in its own way and ours has certainly been an asset to our local neighbourhood’
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