in our garden
Our garden volunteers have enjoyed a rare week with no rain to stop the work! It's great to see our father and son teams working together at space2grow.
Sometimes it's good to step back, look and take in the beautiful colours around the space2grow garden. Enjoy!
Our Thursday gardening group hard at work.
This week saw a visit from 40 Degreez, a long-established local youth and community group supporting young people in Farnham with youth clubs, holiday workshops, courses and more. 40 Degreez use the space2grow garden as a safe haven for young people and this week they really enjoyed the artwork and sculpture made for the garden by Creative Response.
collaboration in our community
Our different groups are fantastic at collaborating and supporting each other and a recent example is Farnham Men in Sheds, our collaboration with Farnham Maltings, making lovely wooden chopping boards for use in our cooking club ran by Coral's Cookery School. The chopping boards will be used by local Primary school children from Potters Gate School and also by people in recovery supported by Transform Housing & Support.
struggling to make ends meet?
The Brambleton Community Fridge is open every Friday from 1pm. The fridge is filled with surplus food from Waitrose which is free for you to take away and cook at home. They also have furniture, bedding, beds and household goods including TV's available. Click the link above to find out more.
weekly wishlist
At space2grow we love to recycle and reuse and save money. Our various groups have created a wishlist of items that would make a real difference on the acre. If you can help by donating any of these items please email us:
large plastic tubs with lids for making organic fertiliser
files and rasps suitable for use with wood
water butts or suitable containers
workbench
seeds and plants
reflections from the acre
Luke comes to Farnham Men in Sheds, our collaboration with Farnham Maltings. His mum Gill shares her reflections on how it is helping Luke……
"We’ve been coming to space2grow for around a month, recommended by Surrey Choices. Luke, who has Autistic Spectrum Disorder, comes to get used to being around people again as he’s had very little human contact since leaving a Life Skills course at Farnborough College of Technology in July. He’s been quite anxious and starts a Work Choices course in September so visiting space2grow is really helping build his confidence around people again.
It’s given him a purpose but the main reason he comes to Farnham Men in Sheds is so that he has positive male mentoring. Most of his education has been led by women so he tends to shut himself off from me at home as I think he’s had enough of being around women, so I needed him to be able to connect with men. It’s not only to have someone to talk to about football and sport but also to get a sense of how to treat people when he’s out and about in public. If he’s always around women he doesn’t know how to speak to those women because he’s only learning how women speak to men. He never hears men speaking to women in a nice, constructive, normal way. Having that is a real benefit.
I want him to learn that he can do things. Although he has his disability he needs to know he can actually do things and it’s not just about sitting in his room and maybe changing his duvet cover. Learning to use his hands to do things is really important.
For me, if I say to him we’ve got Men in Sheds today you need to get up and get ready I know he will. He may be slow in doing it but it’s a different response if I say come on I want to go shopping - that’s usually a flat no.
My one biggest fear is that he will isolate himself so that’s why we need for him to get out and about and be around people.
I’m hoping that spending time and talking with the men in the group will also help him be able to talk to his elder brother who has the same disability. They both struggle with communication and expressing emotion which normally comes out as rage so they can clash.
Bringing Luke to space2grow is also great for me as it gives me a couple of hours to relax in the lovely garden."
If you would like to share what the acre means to you please email info@space2grow.space - we love hearing everyones reflections.
As always, we are working hard to ensure that space2grow remains a Covid safe site so please email info@space2grow.space prior to your visits, bring your own food and drink, take any rubbish home and please adhere to social distancing.
Thank you and see you soon!
