Sunnyside Community Garden was delighted to welcome Councillor Rakhia Ismail the Mayor of Islington, Jack Morris and the other trustees from the Morris Charitable Trust to open our new Morris Family Garden at Sunnyside Community Gardens. Sunnyside’s Friday volunteers have been working with community gardener Lorena Vila to make a child friendly “Cottage Garden” for families to sit in and enjoy. Families are now able to close the small gates and enjoy being in a garden whilst small children can run round without accessing the roads. Historically families were able to enjoy this area of Sunnyside Community Gardens, but after arsonists burnt down the volunteers building, families were no longer able to sit in a closed off area. Local residents many of whom live in flats without gardens spoke about how much they missed being able to relax in a garden with their children. The Morris Charitable Trust generously gave us a grant to make this very special family garden, and many local volunteers came and did all the digging and planting needed, and after a year of gardening it is looking lovely.

We had a grand opening this Sunday 6th October 2019, where local dignitaries and the general public joined us.

After a campaign by local residents for a community garden in this area the GLC (Greater London Council) granted a licence for the Sunnyside plot, which volunteers turned from a derelict rubbish dump into a massive back garden for people living in near by flats. On Saturday 29th July 1978 Sunnyside Community Gardens had a grand opening party. It was a lovely hot day with puppets, clowns, music, pony rides and homemade teas. In 1992, Sunnyside Community Gardens became a registered charity (No 1092031) with the aims of providing horticultural therapy to people with special needs and to provide a community garden and wildlife reserve for local people to enjoy. You can see below an old newsletter from when we first opened with a picture of the site before it was made into a community garden. It is really impressive to see how local people have turned a rubbish dump into a little oasis for people and wildlife. It is also lovely to see that local people have been having fun here for so long.

We are all delighted with our wonderful new logo, many thanks Vick from Harrington & Squires, for all your hard work! We hope this new look helps us look all organised and professional…https://harringtonandsquires.co.uk/

We are delighted to be spotting the first signs of Spring at Sunnyside, come along and see if you can spot any!

And we are loving how fantastic the Hazel’s are looking at the moment!

And Sunnyside looks beautiful…. our brave volunteers have been clearing the paths, putting up bird feeders and a new and frosty volunteer has appeared in the gardens!

We are delighted to have been chosen to be one of the co-op’s local causes in 2018, if you shop at the coop you can support us by choosing Sunnyside Community Gardens to be your co-op local cause. .. log on to the co-op’s members site, your membership number is on your turquoise co-op card and select Sunnyside Community Garden;

www.coop.co.uk/membership  

It is our 40th Birthday Party

Sunday 3rd December 2017 

11am till 2pm

Cake and Plant sales

Make natural decorations

Share memories, show us your photos, chat to neighbours

New Manager

Anna  has started as the new manager on Monday 21st August, she has lots of experience working for small charities especially in environmental education. She is looking forward to getting to know lots of people in the local area inviting more volunteers to Sunnyside. Here is a picture of her at her old job as co-ordinator of Eco-Schools England

Yvonne has retired after a brilliant 5 years

Yvonne has retired from Sunnyside. On Friday 18th August we had a farewell lunch. Yvonne has done a wonderful job welcoming and supporting many people from the local community and is a brilliant gardener, she will be sorely missed. Luckily for us Yvonne is going to be running a “Retired Gardeners Lunch Club from 10 – 2pm every Wednesday starting on Wednesday 6th September, so whether you are retired or not you are very welcome to pop in and say “Hello” to Yvonne on Wednesdays. Hear are some photos of Yvonnes last few days….

Old News…

At the end of last September we spent the weekend building our new cob oven.  Lots of fun was had getting messy mixing up sand, straw and clay to make cob.  Then even more fun was had as we jiggled, jived and bounced on the mixture to bind the cob together.  The oven is now drying out and we hope to use it on halloween to cook some spooky pizzas.

Tim and Sheridan show everyone how it’s done!

Cosey gets all cobby!

The cob oven.  We are now waiting for the cob to dry before removing the sand inside.