Transition Greenspaces

Breathing Spaces Rain Garden Event – 20th April

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What difference can one household make to reducing flood risk?
Find out what a rain garden is, how they reduce surface water run-off to the drains during heavy rainfall, and learn how to make one for the smallest of spaces, cheaply and simply.

Breathing Spaces will talk you through, step-by-step with photos and a video, how to divert your downpipe to a water butt and then to a storm water planter and/or other water-retaining features.

Learn the ratio of the planter box to the size of roof, what soil mix to use, which plants are appropriate and beautiful. There are many different ways of designing a rain garden that suits your home. And even if you need to park a car in it, you can still have drainage that doesn’t add to surface water run-off to our overloaded drains.

Rain Gardens: Reducing Flood Risk One House at a Time
Sat, 20 Apr 2024 14:00 – 15:30
CREW Centre, 8/9 South Street Worthing BN11 3AL

For more info see:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/rain-gardens-reducing-flood-risk-one-house-at-a-time-tickets-841332396847

Seed Swap & Workshop – Sat 17th Feb

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We will be running a scaled down version of our annual Seed Swap event but at least this year we will be in the warm!

If you have any plants or seeds that you can donate for Seed Swap but will be unable to be there yourself, please contact Pauline at [email protected] to arrange collection a week or two before 17th Feb. We will also need home-made cakes and savouries for refreshments, so if you can help please contact Pauline to arrange handover.

Pauline, Claire and Lisa (from Breathing Spaces) will be running a fun and interactive workshop after Seed Swap where we will imagine:
What it would be like if Worthing was able to feed itself in the near future?
We will step through a portal into a future Worthing where lots of things are done differently. You will hear a short story to help you imagine how we feed ourselves in this future – where our food is grown, who’s growing or harvesting it, how it is being sold or shared, how it is sustainable.

In pairs or small groups we will use drawings, magazine photos and maps to make pictures of a local, healthy, resilient food system for Worthing. It will be a playful way to create together the beginnings of a positive vision in which things turn out to be better than they are now.

If you’d like to attend, please book your place here asap: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/what-if-worthing-could-feed-itself-tickets-790051775127 Details under event listing.

TTW Receives a Magic Little Grant!

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We are extremely grateful to players of The People’s Postcode Lottery as we received notification this month that we’ve been awarded a Magic Little Grant through the partnership between Localgiving and Postcode Society Trust!

Postcode Society Trust is a grant-giving charity funded by players of the People’s Postcode Lottery. Localgiving is the UK’s leading membership and support network for local charities and community groups.

Our greenspaces projects received £500 towards the ongoing running costs of our community gardens.

Breathing Spaces – Bread for all and Roses Too

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Our next Garden Club session at CREW is Wed August 9th from 7-9pm and this month we’re going to be sharing tips about seed-saving, doing some harvest-swapping and making some simple bee-logs for solitary bees.

Bring along any fruit, veg, herbs you’ve grown and want to swap. Book a place through Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bread-for-all-and-roses-too-with-breathing-spaces-a-transition-town-worthi-tickets-679426762737

We are not doing a session in September but will be back on October 11.

We’ve had some really great sessions since we started, including learning to identify wildflowers, permaculture, increasing biodiversity of our gardens and our guts, how to eat 30 different plants a week even in the Hungry Gap, Awe & Wonder and Abundance. We’ve sown seeds, potted on, done interactive learning and made sauerkraut. We were so taken with the idea of a Gift Economy – building relationships and resilience through sharing rather than economies based on cash transactions – that we decided to gift our Breathing Spaces fresh flowers to Broadwater Community Support Hub, South Farm Road. They are available there on a ‘give-as-you-can basis’ and any donations are for the Hub. (We are also drying some of our flowers and they will be available to buy later in the year from HISBE.)

Our next volunteer morning at Dankton Barnyard, Sompting is Sunday Aug 6th 11am-1pm (last day of the Big Butterfly Watch), and then every first Sunday of the month. We are at Maybridge Keystone Centre every Thursday morning 10.30am-12.30pm. Get in touch if you would like to help us at either site: [email protected]

Breathing Spaces at CREW – 12th April

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Our next Bread & Roses evening at CREW, 8/9 South St, Worthing BN11 3AL on April 12th, 7-9pm is going to be about Permaculture. We’ll have at least one guest, Pauline from TTW, and we’ll try to introduce you to this fascinating subject (in 2 hours!).

Permaculture is about designing resilience, so it’s not just about gardens and growing, and really it will change the way you think about everything! We’ll have our usual mindful beginning and a look at pattern in nature, there’ll be local examples and interaction, and even a cuppa.

Book a place via CREW’s Eventbrite booking system: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bread-for-all-and-roses-too-monthly-garden-club-with-breathing-spaces-tickets-519575713947

Breathing Spaces at CREW – 8th March

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“Once you develop a relationship with a little patch of earth, it becomes a seed itself.”

This quote from Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, was one of the inspiring quotes we considered at the Garden Club we run at CREW once a month to explore gardening in a climate and nature crisis. Our theme in February was seeds and how growing your own seed for next year will eventually result in plants better adapted to local soil and climate, as well as being free! We looked at seasonal foliage and flowers, mindfully sowed some beans, and had a chat over tea about restoring relationship between land and people. One of our attendees said afterwards:

“I felt more confident about how I could use seeds in the garden… and I was particularly struck with the chat we had about awe and wonder and felt that for me, gardening brings a lot of this into my life in various ways.”

Another said “I came away feeling peaceful and relaxed. With our observations of the changing of the seasons and your basket of plants I felt more appreciative of the beauty around us at this time of year.”

Our theme on March 8th is wildflowers and we will look at identifying them as they come into growth (but before flowering), and we will sow some, whilst talking about what we can learn from them for gardening in changing climate conditions. We will be joined by Emma from Worthing Climate Action Network and Debbie from Worthing Wildflower Trail to discuss how we can encourage more wildflowers in our gardens, urban streets and public spaces and why we need to do that. The sessions are free and you don’t need to commit to coming every month, it’s not a course as such. Please join us by booking here:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/bread-for-all-and-roses-too-monthly-garden-club-with-breathing-spaces-tickets-519575713947?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

And if you want to get your hands dirty, we are back every Thursday morning at the Flower Farm (10.30-12.30) and once a month at Dankton Barnyard (March 12th, 11am-1pm and then every first Sunday of the month). Get in touch: [email protected]

Seed Swap Event Sunday 5th March

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TTW will have a couple of stalls for Seed and Plant Swapping (you can also buy them) at the Sustainable Market on Sat 5th March in the usual place – Freedom Works Covered Car Park, Stoke Abbott Road, Worthing, BN11 1HJ (opposite the Assembly Hall) from 9.30am – 1.30pm. Do bring your plants and seeds to swap if you have any. There will be the usual traders as well as some local community stalls.

Locally Grown and Dried Flowers

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We are delighted to let you know that Breathing Spaces got ahead of the ‘trendy’ curve this year and dried lots of our locally and sustainably-grown flowers.

Even better news is that you can buy a bunch from HISBE Supermarket, Portland Street (until stocks run out), or cute little posies from the TTW stall at the Sustainability Market on December 4 when, if we are lucky, there will be the last of the fresh Chrysanthemums too.

It’s our first year of drying flowers and we are really pleased with the way many kept their colour. Of course we did it naturally with no extra heat, no dyes or chemicals, it just takes up a lot of cupboard space under the stairs!

It will be our last volunteer session of the year at Dankton Lane Barnyard, Sompting, from 11am to 1pm Sunday 4 December, weather permitting. Bring thick gloves and a drink/snack and dress for the weather. And we are still tending the flower farm on Thursday mornings at Maybridge Keystone Centre, Worthing BN12 6JD 10.30am-12.30pm, last session of the year on Thursday December 15.

Many thanks to all our fabulous volunteers, we have so enjoyed growing and being in nature this year with you, and to everyone who has bought flowers from us, covering our running costs and contributing to TTW overheads. Wishing everyone a peaceful and loving winter break and see you next year.

[email protected]

Breathing Spaces in November

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You can join us at Dankton Lane Barnyard, Sompting, from 11am to 1pm Sunday 6 November for a volunteers work-morning.

Keeping on top of the overly-dominant plants like brambles and such like (bring thick gloves and a drink/snack and dress for the weather) and checking to see how the pond and the wild bees are getting on.

Or if you would like some of these autumnal beauties, we should have dropped off chrysanthemums for sale on the TTW stall at the Sustainability Market, Stoke Abbott Road, also on 6 November. Generous bunches for £5 each (you could even split them and share with someone else). Get there early before they’re all gone!

And don’t forget you can volunteer with us on Thursday mornings at Maybridge Keystone Centre, Worthing BN12 6JD 10.30am-12.30pm and learn how we grow them (and other flowers), without chemicals or heat.

[email protected]

Don’t Forget To Breathe

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If you need an opportunity and a place to breathe (who doesn’t!), getting involved with nature is one of the best ways to do it, and it can be even better in the company of friendly people. There are two ways to volunteer with TTW project Breathing Spaces:

Help us look after the small community flower farm and woodland garden at the Maybridge Keystone Centre, Raleigh Way, Worthing. There’s still plenty of autumn jobs to do and we will be gardening right up til the beginning of December. You will learn what’s seasonal, how to grow in a nature-led and sustainable way, and you can help us prepare bunches of gorgeous blooms for our wonderful subscribers. The flowers are still abundant and volunteers usually get a few to take home. We are there on Thursday mornings, 10.30am-12.30pm, but if Thursdays are not a good a day for you, it is possible that you could help us on other days. For example, Shared Lives garden on Tuesdays when we are not there, and some of our volunteers go to water or do jobs on other days. Let us know what works for you.

For some wilder ‘gardening’, join us at Dankton Lane Barnyard, Sompting, usually on the first Sunday of every month, 11am-1pm, between March and December. It’s a site for wildlife and wildflowers where (with kind permission of Sompting Estate) we are improving the pond and keeping the most dominant vegetation at bay so that there is more biodiversity (we’re a bit like grazing animals in a re-wilding project!). So, for example, we pull out some of the brambles, hogweed and thistles whilst leaving plenty for the wild creatures, including the bees in the log hive installed there as part of the Bees And Seas project. It’s a peaceful, hidden gem on the Downs, and you can walk or cycle there from Worthing or Lancing (no parking on site). Again, there is a possibility to volunteer there on other days if you have got to know the site and the work.

Keep breathing deep through the autumn and winter. Contact Claire or Lisa:
[email protected]