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We started the Autumn season with a bulb planting day. With the help of one of the Castle's new members of staff, Claire Lee. We took the advantage of of the last of the sunny warm October days and planted bluebells, snowdrops, crocuses, wild garlic and wild daffodils under the big trees in the garden. We'll hopefully see some lovely colourful flowers pop up from next Spring! These early flowers will certainly keep the bees happy. 
We also had the pleasure seeing these lovely jerusalem artichoke flowers which were in full flower all October! We harvested plenty of them at the end of November, some given to volunteers and the rest to the Castle cafe. Sam and Giusi, made great use of them and served them up roasted with potatoes and rosemary.
Around this time of year, while working around the garden we found ourselves unintentionally finding hibernating wildlife, so we made sure to make an range of habitats, such as our "sleazy bug hotels", "lacewing hotel" and a "habitat mansion" made with pallets stacked on top of each other, inspired by the London Wildlife Trust.
The Stumpery
One of my favourite habitats to create is the Victorian inspired "stumpery". (To carry on the theme of the castle being originally Victorian building and grounds). We have lots of dead tree stumps with roots, and old logs from when we had the sycamores pulled out. We half buried them in the ground and planted ferns, woodland plants and bulbs around them. We hope to attract some stag beetles! Other Victoiran features to look out for in our garden is the "figgery", "shrubbery" and the "mushroomery"
On our early November workday some young climbers came out and helped make our "lacewing hotels" out of used plastic bottles.
The Swale
Barry leading the way with our swale on the hill! Of course it took him no time to complete, with the help of a few extra strong hands.
We have nearly completed the swale. This part of the project is led by the CEO of the Castle, Steve Taylor. This swale is basically a ditch dug along the contours of the hill at the back of the castle, and it's purpose is for water from the mens changing rooms, (from the sinks and showers) to run through it and adding extra infiltration into the soil. We will be planting lots of trees and shrubs in the mounds in front of the swale. We hope to get this planted and started by the start of Spring next year, so watch this space!
Our November bonfire celebration
Tom Trimmins and his wickerman, which he later was set alight in the HUGE bonfire, along with all our effigies....
winter vegetables from the mini plotters and wild mushrooms found in the garden.
NEXT in the garden - we'll be battling it out through the icy cold winter planning, preparing, creating the new forest garden area, and we'll be having a Winter solstice celebration with a bonfire on the 19th December, click here for details.
On weekend of the 9th and 10th October, as part of the 10:10 global action on climate change we decided to do an apple themed event and we joined in with the local team hackney harvest to go round the local area to pick apples and pears that would usually go to waste. The hackney harvest team started the project this year, a there is so much fruit going to waste from local fruit trees which are mainly in people's back gardens and also many in public places. Some of the trees are really big, and difficult to harvest from, and sometimes the tree owners they end up with such an abundance of fruit that it is too much to deal with, or they don't even pick them at all and see the dropping fruit as a nuisance. 
Thanks to the inspiration from projects such as the scrumping project in Walthamstow - who started this idea a few years ago, and abundance project in sheffield. This is a great way to get this fruit put to good use in the local community. The fruit gets picked (with permission from the owners!) some fruit going back to the owners, and the rest is distributed to community groups as fruit or as juice, desserts, chutneys, jams and cider!
Getting climbers up the trees!
As a first year trial, I thought it would be a great idea to get some Castle climbers involved, using their skills and strength to climb tall fruit trees to shake the high branches which wouldn't usually be reached! We went to a back garden of someone I know on Allerton Road (a friend who I happen to pass while he was picking up his growing commmunities veg bag from the Castle pick up point). He told me he had a huge pear tree completely covered in fruit. We went there in full force, couple of climbers up the tree, and it was raining pears! Think we ended up with about 80kg of pears! And that is from one tree! 
The next day, I borrowed an apple press, and we spent the day pressing the fruit into juice, making apple fritters, and playing some apple games, and we even sang a song, thanks to Robert Malies who turned up with his guitar and made up a song for us to sing along to! (you can here it here) It was lovely and sunny, and some of the Sunday climbers who came to climb with their children, kept on finding them out in the garden with us helping 
us press juice, trying the apple fritters and trying the apple bobbing! Some of the juice was drunk by us all, then some sold in the Castle cafe, some made into apple cakes (thanks to Sam in the cafe) and some, (well most of it) is fermenting somewhere in the castle, slowing turning into cider! To be drunk on after a very hard cold workday in the garden.
Next year, there is definitely potential 
to get tons more fruit! After chatting to a few locals about their big fruit trees,it seems they are more than happy to let us in their back gardens to climb and harvest their unwanted fruit. See more photos here
We started the Autumn season with a bulb planting day. With the help of one of the Castle's new members of staff, Claire Lee. We took the advantage of of the last of the sunny warm October days and planted bluebells, snowdrops, crocuses, wild garlic and wild daffodils under the big trees in the garden. We'll hopefully see some lovely colourful flowers pop up from next Spring! These early flowers will certainly keep the bees happy. 
We also had the pleasure seeing these lovely jerusalem artichoke flowers which were in full flower all October! We harvested plenty of them at the end of November, some given to volunteers and the rest to the Castle cafe. Sam and Giusi, made great use of them and served them up roasted with potatoes and rosemary.
Around this time of year, while working around the garden we found ourselves unintentionally finding hibernating wildlife, so we made sure to make an range of habitats, such as our "sleazy bug hotels", "lacewing hotel" and a "habitat mansion" made with pallets stacked on top of each other, inspired by the London Wildlife Trust.
One of my favourite habitats to create is the Victorian inspired "stumpery". (To carry on the theme of the castle being originally Victorian building and grounds). We have lots of dead tree stumps with roots, and old logs from when we had the sycamores pulled out. We half buried them in the ground and planted ferns, woodland plants and bulbs around them. We hope to attract some stag beetles! Other Victoiran features to look out for in our garden is the "figgery", "shrubbery" and the "mushroomery" 
On our early November workday some young climbers came out and helped make our "lacewing hotels" out of used plastic bottles.
