We always have fun when we take our #GrowingSupport sessions to Deerhurst, and last week was no exception! 🌿 It's great to be harvesting veg we'd grown together! 🥔🫛🍓 We also made butterfly puddlers 🦋 and immersed ourselves in the sensory joy of sweet peas. 👩‍🌾

It was summer party time at the Wellspring Settlement Settlement gardening group last week! 🥳 One of the group members had requested a party to celebrate the team's hard work over the year, which we were happy to help facilitate! 🎉

There were tears 😢 as we said goodbye to uber-volunteer Kate on Wednesday. Although Kate has only been volunteering with us at the BRI for five months, she has made an enormous impression in that time and will be missed by patients, staff, and other volunteers. ✨

Following a suggestion from one of the GPs LawrenceHillGPs Health Centre, there's now a box with free veg in the waiting room stocked with produce grown during our weekly gardening sessions. Some bunches of herbs complimented this week's offerings - also fresh from the garden!

🍅 We're in peak tomato season at the allotments, so we attended to their needs this week before harvesting all that were ripe and tasting the different varieties. 🌿 🌸 Meanwhile, Ruth was back in her natural habitat, deep amongst the sweet peas! 🌱

Lots happening in @hellobrigstow #Hoppiness project with ALIVEgardening at present. Brilliant Cam designing lovely things for us. Looking forward to Wiper and True | Beautiful Beer brewery visit with residents next week. And emerging findings from analysis... All good😀

Our brewing with care homes project has been getting some media attention! The cones on our hop plants are plumping up nicely now - it won't be long till we're harvesting them and taking them down to Left Handed Giant!

We bid a sad farewell to volunteer Erika on Tuesday. 😢💐 In a short space of time, she has forged deep and meaningful relationships with all our participants thanks to her compassionate nature and an affirming interest in people's stories and experiences. 🫶📖

We had a fantastic time at our Talbot Road allotment session last week! 🥔🌿 People chitted "spuds for Christmas", veg was harvested, tomatoes 🍅 were sampled - "There are no words to describe the taste" - and flowers were arranged for people to take home with them. 🌸

"I'm happy I participated in this, it's given me an opportunity to display individuality and creativity and do something a bit different." 😊🌸 We received this amazing feedback from one of the participants during last week's BRI session arranging locally grown flowers. 🌿💐

Our allotment in North Bristol is at its most colourful and productive atm. We're enjoying sitting back and realising the product of our hard work over the last few months. Growing has been challenging this year, making everything we harvest an absolute victory!

Always a cause for celebration - we had our first #callaloo harvest of the year this week. 🌿

Last Tuesday's session at Talbot Road was another busy one! 🌱🥔🍓 Spuds were planted, strawberry runners were potted, and miniature gardens were created. 🌿🌸 We also welcomed Cath from Alzheimer's Society to talk about their Time for Dementia programme. 🧠💙

This week at Brentry, five people joined us who'd never been to the allotment before. 🌱 After a full tour (harvesting runner beans and tasting tomatoes as they went 🍅), they helped us save some sweet pea seeds and made origami seed packets to store them in. ✂️🌸

We had a lovely time Wellspring Settlement last Thursday afternoon, making willow hurdles, painting bird boxes, potting up planters, watering around the building, and treating the hard-working beds to some TLC. 🌿🎨🪴💦🌷

We had a relaxed session at our Brentry allotment on Tuesday planting, sowing and saving seeds from everyone's favourite tomato 🍅 Black Krim. It was also nice to welcome Chris back for the first time in a few weeks. 🤗

We had to send the emergency services in to give one exhausted bee a pick-me-up on Tuesday. 🚑🐝 #SaveTheBees #AllotmentLife

We were invited to the Talbot Road Allotments' Summer Show on Saturday to open it, talk about our work and show people around our plot! It was wonderful to invite visitors into our little patch of paradise and hear all the compliments from seasoned allotmenteers! 👩‍🌾👨‍🌾

Our favourite week of the year - hops harvesting week! Apart from the week in October when we get to sample the beer, of course!

We took a big delivery of veg 🥕🍅 from the allotments to BS3 Jammin at the weekend. We look forward to completing the circle 🔄 next week when we bring back some of the chutneys and pickles 🥒 made at this fantastic event to participants!