The Big Dig held on Saturday 16th March was a national initiative to open up community gardens for visitors and potential volunteers to find what was going on in their local communities and hopefully raise awareness and attract new volunteers. More information at https://www.bigdig.org.uk/
Bournemouth and Poole played their part with 2 community gardens scheduled to open their gates for the event. Slade Farm Open Space in Ensbury Park (sadly rained off) and Tatnam Organic Patch in Poole.
Tatnam Organic Patch was founded about 13-14 years go and community gardener Gary Finch gave me a rundown of what it was all about and a potted history of the project.
“The garden was found by Barry Adams who had applied for an allotment and was somewhat frustrated by the slow and bureaucratic process of obtaining an allotment although he could clearly see several plots appeared to be vacant.
Barry approached Poole Council under the Local Agenda 21 initiative started by John Major after the Rio Earth Summit in 1992 initially seeking to use a triangle of land cut off from the main allotment site. After some protracted initial negotiations Poole Council agreed to turn the land over to Barry as a community garden for a peppercorn rent.
The land was covered to a depth of about 8 feet in brambles and a group of around 40 or 50 people (all volunteers) cleared the brambles and got things underway”
Fast forward to 2013.Garywas approached by Sarah Watson to see if Tatnam Organic Patch would be prepared to take part in the Big Dig and open its gates for a day as an outreach to the local community and as a part of the national initiative.
Gary continues. “Today the site is open for visitors to come and see for themselves what we do our aim is to promote wildlife, educate, and support people to produce their own food. Everything is farmed organically at Tatnam and we have a comprehensive program of composting and rainwater re-cycling as the garden has no mains water supply”.
Just next door on the main allotments I found another community project called SMILE (Single Mums In Loving Embraces). Spokesperson Rebecca Carron told me what it was about.
“The Community allotment is part of a bigger initiative set up in the Poole and Bournemouth area for solo parents. We aim to provide playtime support, emotional support and practical help to single parents. More information can be found at https://www.smileconnect.co.uk.
“This allotment has been set up with financial help from The Valentines Trust, The Lions Club and the seedbed trust and our seed has been kindly donated by Homebase. This is our first year and we are hoping to initially grow potatoes, courgettes and spinach amongst other crops.
The project isn’t just for solo parents but for all families in the community”
Thanks to everyone involved for their help and hospitality both at Tatnam Organic Patch and the SMILE project.
Graham Horne
Swanage
