The Garden Room - Bulwell Forest Garden

Aim

Help us build a warm and inclusive Garden Room, expanding the social connections and well-being we nurture through food, activity and nature

Bulwell Forest Garden (BFG) 

Hello from the team at BFG and thank you for visiting our fundraising page. We need your help to raise £15,000 to fund our new Garden Room which will enable us to deliver our essential activities throughout the year.

Bulwell Forest Garden is a 2.7 acre inner city community garden, founded in 2012. The site includes a woodland area, orchard, vegetable growing beds, ornamental borders, a sensory garden, wildlife pond, medicinal garden, wildflower meadows, poly tunnels, and outdoor kitchen with community cob oven. Activities we provide include 4 weekly volunteer sessions growing fruit and vegetables to share with the community and conservation work to protect wildlife and habitats, weekly yoga and pilates, a weekly lunch club, weekly music and nature toddler group, teen conservation group and Forest School, training workshops, family activity days, and a weekly Forest Garden Shop. Our Lets Get Growing club invite Bulwell households to "grow their own" by providing free fortnightly resource packs and video tutorials on our youtube channel, and we currently have 80 households taking part. In addition to all this, we deliver school visits twice a week from all over Nottingham to learn more about food growing, environmental sustainability and nature.

Over the past 10 years, Bulwell Forest Garden has become a cornerstone in the community, providing opportunities for people of all ages to come together, make friends, and engage with nature on their doorstep, providing access to affordable fruit and vegetables, a greater understanding of biodiversity on our doorstep and opportunities to volunteer. All of our projects and activities are “weather permitting” though and can be cancelled at short notice or stop all together throughout Winter.

The Garden Room

To help us to deliver our activities 'whatever the weather' we need a welcoming and warm garden room. Designed by local architects, the warm and light eco-building will be constructed with environmentally sustainable and repurposed materials, insulated, include solar panels, rain-water harvesting, a green roof, and be large enough to comfortably host 30 people.

Why It Matters

Bulwell is a vibrant, family centred, proud community with a big heart. Unfortunately, it also has the highest levels of deprivation in Nottingham City, as well as higher than average levels of health inequalities. 

At Bulwell Forest Garden, we provide access to nature in many different ways, improving both mental and physical wellbeing, and our environment. 

With your support, each winter, we will be able to host more activities and workshops that teach people of all ages about nature and biodiversity, and provide a warm hub for our volunteers, enabling us to plant native trees/woodland bulbs and grow more food in the cold months. All this will ensure local people have consistent access to affordable food, nature and social opportunities, as well as improving our environment. 

Annually, we will:

• deliver 20 more school visits
• deliver 16 more Forest School sessions
• deliver 16 more music and nature toddler sessions
• serve 150 more community meals
• provide 50 more veg packs to local people
• deliver 50 volunteer sessions with a warm hub

In the first year, with the Garden Room as a "warm hub" our volunteers will:

• create 10 conservation log piles and 10 nesting boxes
• sow and plant 500 native woodland wildflowers, plant 10 native trees and 100 hedgerow shrubs
• share information and resources to 50 local households, expanding biodiversity throughout Bulwell

Testimonials...

Local resident, 65 - I live alone and really felt the impact this had on my mental health during COVID. The GP referred me to the social prescribing team who introduced me to the community garden. I started attending Pilates every Friday morning, which did me the world of good physically and mentally, thanks to the gorgeous backdrop of the Sensory Garden. I also got to meet people and started staying after session, helping out with Lunch Club and gardening tasks. I now have good friends I have met through BFG and Fridays are the best part of my week. Unfortunately, due to the weather, Pilates moved into the Tesco community room throughout winter, and Lunch Club took a break until Spring. I can't wait for the return of better weather and our Pilates and lunch Club at the Garden, to see people again and be outdoors amongst the birds.

Local mum, 40 with her sons, aged 11 and 8 - We regularly pop in after school, letting the kids explore the woods and climb trees, and buy some seasonal veg for tea. These benefits to my children have been great. It's helped them mix with the community. My older son has Muscular Dystrophy and has been diagnosed with Autism, both of which result in him feeling isolated from his peers. He has been a member of Forest School for over a year and here he has found his happy place. We couldn't be more grateful to the leaders and the group. His enthusiasm for going and joining in is amazing, he is more active, and is so much calmer and happier. The Garden is so much more to us as a family and to many other families within our community, I don't know what we'd do without it! 

Councillor Cheryl Barnard (Portfolio Holder for children, young people and schools) - The work Bulwell Forest Garden undertake with adults and children is outstanding. They provide volunteering opportunities, many of which are taken up by individuals with mental health issues, and the feedback I receive from volunteers confirms the physical health and therapeutic benefits that working in the Garden brings.

Anita Christie (Community College Tutor) - Bulwell Forest Garden is such a unique space to teach in. I use the medicinal garden as part of teaching and demonstrate to students the source from which certain essential oils are extracted from for natural skin care products and first aid tinctures in session. A high percentage of my students suffer with depression and anxiety and the benefits of completing their course on the community garden surrounded by nature helps improve their mental wellbeing, helping them work towards their own personal goals such as improve confidence, and brings a social aspect to their life.
Sadly, the outdoor shelter where I deliver my courses is not suitable to teach in when the weather is cold. When the temperature drops dramatically, we have to wear our coats, hats, scarfs and gloves which is not very practical when teaching therapy courses which are mainly practical based. A warm building with electricity would mean I can deliver courses throughout winter, and expand the types of courses Nottingham College can deliver.

The History

In 2011, all of this was just a disused piece of land and a seed in the minds of a few dedicated local folk. As a direct result of the views of local residents through public consultations, an agreement between NCC, Cantrell Primary School and BFG was formed, providing a whopping 20 year lease on the land!

A phased plan was developed, to include food growing and wildlife areas, a community orchard and outdoor kitchen, and in July 2012, BFG opened its gates for the first time, with local residents volunteering their time to transform the unused land into an area fit for growing fruit and vegetables.

Cantrell Primary School were provided with an access gate from their playground and offered exclusive use of the Community Garden on Tuesdays and Thursdays as an outdoor classroom.

The summer of 2012 saw the first of our Family Sessions, which were popular from the beginning, including free workshops such as building bird boxes, gardening skills, environmental crafts and healthy cooking.

From then, we have gone from strength to strength, becoming a charity and employing 8 workers, ensuring the projects sustainability.

This project successfully funded on 5th August 2023