Amber Marquand, from Natural England West Midlands, organised a networking event for Let's Get Potting participants and we jumped at the chance to host in the Thrive gardens. The Let’s Get Potting project was a community-led initiative designed to empower voluntary, community and faith sector organisations to consider the benefits of nature-based activities to support mental and physical health for their service users. These follow-up meet-ups help people in the sector stay connected, collaborate and share ideas. We went on a garden tour, shared project updates and drank some fresh lemon balm tea!
We are very excited to receive a camera trap on loan from Colchester Zoo's Education Team. Together, with the support of children and young people visiting the garden over this summer term, we will set up and hopefully capture on footage, some of the wildlife that enjoy the garden when we aren't looking! We will update the blog with any exciting finds.
This month we also welcomed a group of Iranian women from the charity Restore. We spent time painting in the sunshine, looking at pond life and pond plants and making some bird feeders. A few women took home some rhubarb and they shared with me some of the recipes and ways that they prepare rhubarb in Iranian cuisine as a savoury dish, often paired with meat.
The 313th Sikh Scout Group joined us to "escape the garden!" They worked in teams to solve nature and plant- based puzzles to complete an escape-room style activity. They successfully managed to solve the puzzles and crack the padlock codes to escape the garden!
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