Open Garden Square Weekend – 6 and 7 June 2020

Please note that the Open Garden Square Weekend has had to be postponed this year due to the Coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic

For more information visit: www.opensquares.org

Collaborating with other projects

CKC is delighted to be collaborating with two great projects – the London Sustainability Exchange’s (LSX) Pollinator Paths project and Refettorio Felix @ St Cuthberts.  Read on to see how they are working together to support common aims and objectives:

Connecting residents with nature – discovering pollinators

Community gardens improve the wellbeing of both residents and pollinators – the animals and insects who pollinate one in every three mouthfuls of food we eat, but who are increasingly endangered by pesticides and the decline of urban green spaces. Through cultivating community gardens, residents can be physically active and socialise with their neighbours, as well as benefitting the environment and biodiversity.

Cultivating Kensington and Chelsea (CKC) is delighted to be teaming up with the London Sustainability Exchange Pollinator Paths project which aspires to connect local residents with nature, particularly through gardening, by delivering a number of workshops within the setting of a community garden.  Participants get to take home the pesticide-free plants in a windowsill box so that they can have a ‘pollinator-friendly’ patch in their garden or on a balcony.  By leaving these plants to flower they provide much needed forage for bees, butterflies, and garden moths.  CKC supports the project by providing the pollinator-friendly plants.  It is important to use plants that are grown organically without pesticides which is exactly what CKC does.  This is vital as pesticides harm pollinating insects such as bees, butterflies and garden moths.

Most of the workshops are held at Meanwhile Gardens Community Association a community space in the heart of North Kensington.  Meanwhile Gardens has become a hub where residents can learn about the importance of pollinators and how to plant pollinator-friendly seeds and plants and continue their pollinator journey of discovery – no gardening knowledge required!

To find out more about the Pollinator Path Project visit: www.lsx.org.uk/

register for events with your name and postcode by sending an email to c.hawthorne@lsx.org.uk or call 0207 234 9402

One local charity supporting another through food

Refettorio Felix @ St Cuthberts is a local food waste charity that provides around sixty free lunches a day for vulnerable people in the Earl’s Court area in a beautiful converted community space at the St Cuthbert’s Centre.

Cultivating Kensington & Chelsea has been supporting this charity since the summer of 2018 by utilising seven planters at its Greenhouse site at Kensington Olympia to grow and provide freshly picked herbs, salads and vegetables that are given to the chefs in the kitchen at the St Cuthbert’s Centre to use when preparing the lunches.  The planters also provide a tool for volunteers learning the various stages of planting and growing.

A continuing collaboration between the two charities in the 2020 growing season will see further involvement and a more bespoke planting regime to provide more fresh locally grown produce.

To find out more visit: https://www.refettoriofelix.com/