Edward Street

Corner of Edward Street and Kingston Road

About this garden

Edward Street is our largest community patch with three types of composting on site.

We garden here with our weekly volunteers and in collaboration with NOAH, St Matthew's Primary School and Richmond Hill School.

The raised beds were constructed by Penrose Roots to Recovery in around 2018.

In 2025 we're refreshing the garden with ideas around permaculture, read the summary and our 2025 to-do list.

Grapevine

Three-tier raised beds

Leaf mulch cage and compost

Basil the scarecrow (on holiday, will be back soon!)

What you can do here

join our gardening sessions
help us keep the grass trimmed
help us water
harvest lettuce leaves (most are 'pick and come again')

What's growing this season

Fruit

Plums
Rhubarb
Redcurrants
Blackcurrants
Raspberries
Apples
Pears

Vegetables

Garlic
Potatoes
Spinach
Broad beans
Tomatoes
Sunflowers

Herbs and flowers

Lavender
Curryplant (Helichrysium Italicum)

What else grows here

Mature sycamore tree
Hawthorn
Grass

What's great here

fantastic raised beds
lovely tree
loads of variety
enough space for a garden party

What's challenging here

shady at the back
cats love it as a loo
notorious for fly tipping on one corner

Rainwater harvester

Collecting water

We've finally finished installing our water collector in January 2024. The original design had to be made a bit simpler, but it's working nevertheless. The collector is collecting rain ready for the summer.

Saying that, we're always looking for watering volunteers - could it be you?

The initial design

The original design for the rainwater harvester included a green roof cantilevered against the tree trunk. It was a lovely idea that would've filtered the water before it is going into the tank. It was just too hard to put into practice, and attaching it to the tree would've brought additional challenges.

Muddy Edward Street garden in winter 2025

2025 plans

After 7 years, the raised beds start breaking apart. The fencing is loose in some places. The garden needs some TLC. We had a planning session with inspiration from permaculture gardens and thinking about the challenges of the site and the opportunities a more 'permanent' planting can bring.

Scratching our heads at the planning morning - mapping out the 'as is' of the site.

We want to experiment with more permanent planting on Edward street in order to:

create an abundant harvest all year ‘round with less work (sounds magical, right?)
improve biodiversity
work with the challenges around shade and shallow soil depth
find a longer-term way of using the raised beds that are starting to break

To-do list

Short term do’s (in the next month):

install a 'fruit tree guild'
Fix the step over fruit tree supports
Turn ‘Zoltan’s Bed’ into the place for Rhubarb
Patch pyramid planters with metal brackets (T. is researching)
Prune the hawthorn tree
Remove the passion flower so we can repair the fence
Move the rhubarb tyres from around the plum tree
Move the bean tipi
Plant shade loving plants in the shaded bed at the flytipping hotspot

Medium term (spring) 2025

Plant potatoes with St Matthew’s pupils in the first low bed
Repair the fence with the help of TS. corporate volunteers (from March approx)
Remove the wooden stump in the ground

Longer term (late 2025):

Make and install pathfinder sign that explains the site to passers by and volunteers
Think about wood chipping some of the area at the back to stop the mud, especially in winter in the shaded areas.

Fruit tree guild

The ‘permaculture bed fruit tree guild experiment’

We want to establish 1 permaculture bed with a fruit tree, shrubs and groundcover plants that are mutually beneficial to each other. The bare soil will be covered with wood chippings. If the wooden planter breaks apart, we can replace it with natural edging made of branches from the maple tree.

Plants may include: