ECCG: Annual Review 2023-2024

A summer gathering with Transition Cambridge

Here is our Annual Review, compiled by Charlotte and presented at the AGM of Transition Cambridge. We covered some of the highlights in our blog, look back at the posts - see panel on your right for a selection.

It has been a peculiar year at Empty Common. The wet and mild weather of the las two years has seriously affected the balance of things. With no frost to kill the gastropod eggs and wonderfully cool damp summers we have, like everyone else, been inundated with gastropods. This spring was spent growing microgreens for gastropods, and that’s not funny. 

Many seeds drowned and those that achieved those first two precious leaves were eaten. Some crops were sown and nurtured four times without success. For the first time we succumbed to tempting our fat gastropods to their death with beer. Good crops were beans, beetroot, carrots, basil and tomatoes but it has been disheartening for all vegetable growers and we are already short of volunteers. Another thug within the garden has been the bindweed. Completely out of control and it is going to be a long slow job to tame it. Any bindweed haters who wish to take their anger or despair out on bindweed are welcome.

On the plus sides, which are many, the garden is still doing well, mainly thanks to Ben Womack and it has provided a wonderful space for many activities. 

Meeting hut update

Having raised £375 through crowdfunding, John and I fitted a wood burner over the winter and finished off many of the smaller jobs including the disco lighting. We are now well equipped with 12-volt lighting, 240-volt sockets and USB ports. We are looking for a projector for small film shows if anyone knows of a spare. 

The hut and garden together have hosted several events:

• A couple of “Healing Words” creative writing workshops,
• The concluding morning of a two-day imaginarium titled “Seeds in the DIRT”, where writers from all over the country met to discuss how to reduce the writing industry’s footprint.
• Water Sensitive Cambridge held a community water ceremony “Honour the Water.”
• Cambridge Permaculture Group have been meeting monthly. A small but very happy group where we have a little rest from all the things we do in life and exchange ideas, knowledge, and friendship.
•  “Drawn to Nature,” an art group used the hut for one of their art days.

Cambridge Climate Therapists, Resilience Web, The Woodcraft Folk, and a dance group have also used the garden and hut while locals celebrated a very wet Chinese New Year.

Several Transition Cambridge get-togethers have taken place in the garden and of course Anna’s Birthday. 

Other events included:

A visit by Charles Dowding, the famous “No Dig” grower who was appalled by the number of homes we’d built for gastropods. Wanting the garden to be a part of the wider ecosystem has its drawbacks. 

As usual we took part in the RSPB’s annual Big Bird Count.

We talked permaculture gardening on the Cambridge 105 program, “Flavour.”

We made a Permaculture Trail for the garden which gives a short introduction to permaculture. It highlights various aspects of the garden and how they fit with permaculture principles and design. This trail can be followed around the garden with the use of QR codes or virtually online.

We won a grant for £485 from the Transition Network to have a decent Gas burner with safety certificated plumbing fitted in the hut but this has proved difficult as we fall between gas regulation brackets, We’re not a house, boat, mobile home or caravan. Such is life. We have been given permission to use the money for the cheaper solution of a camping stove and another project.

Marrying the synergy of volunteering and funding, AstraZeneca volunteers have visited and added slices of tree to our log seating - making it relatively comfortable, a mini pond and bog garden to take our hut’s roof water slowly and usefully away and erected two large garden name boards which John and Charlotte have just put the lettering on. Finally, after ten years we have a huge sign on Brookland’s Avenue advertising “Empty Common Community Garden & Hut.”