Curating Space to Grow Paradise Cooperative Charity Wandsworth

Paradise Spring Festival 30th April

Come to our Spring Festival, with food, drink, nature based crafts & opportunities to learn about sustainable urban growing.

Book on eventbrite

We love to celebrate the seasons at Paradise…

Introducing Paradise Wild, an exciting club for…

We care deeply about the productive connection…

Events for schools and workshops are available…

Get involved

We are always looking for new volunteers to come and join us, so please drop us a mail to get involved.

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"Creating with nature is a powerful antidote to an

"Creating with nature is a powerful antidote to anxiety, stress and isolation, a way to explore connections with each other and the world around us. Just like nature, natural art is sometimes precise and intentional, sometimes — playful and accidental. It is as much about the process as it is about the result and it can allow us to channel our thoughts and emotions, develop self-awareness and begin to live more mindfully".
Clementina

Clementina is going to be joining our Mindful Gardening volunteer sessions on Tuesdays, to run creative workshops alongside the gardening. If you'd like to find out more, please email: team@paradisecooperative.org

These art sessions will be starting on Tuesday 21st Feb, from 1pm - 3pm, adults only and spaces are limited.

#wellbeing #artforwellbeing #communityart #communityartproject #londongardening #wintergardening #winterinlondon #urbangardening #sw18 #wandsworth #getoutside #naturebasedart #mindfulness

Sightings of some winter colour, popping up around

Sightings of some winter colour, popping up around Paradise.

#flowerpower #wintercolours #wintergarden #londongarden #sw18 #wandsworth #earlsfield #earlsfieldlocal #communitygarden #communitygardening #beautifulblooms

Abby, our head gardener & head of biodiversity & f

Abby, our head gardener & head of biodiversity & food growing, has been sewing some micro greens, as an extra winter crop for our community partners.

Look out for these on the menus of @homecafesw18 and @wellkneadedfood in the future…

#microgreens #wintercrops #londongardening #wintergardening #wandsworth #earlsfield #sw18 #earlsfieldlocal #biodiversity #organicgrowing #organicveggies#foodgrowinginlondon #growyourown

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES. We have been planting out J

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES.
We have been planting out Jerusalem artichokes in a new area of perennial ‘Wild Edibles’, alongside wild garlic, globe artichokes, and a fair quantity of blackberries.

Also known as topinambour or Canadian artichoke, Helianthus tuberosa belongs to the sunflower family and is native to South America not the Middle East. Its name is thought to be a derivation of the Italian word for sunflower ‘girasole’.

Jerusalem artichokes will tolerate most soils, though with compost-enriched soil will produce larger tubers. Plant them 10-15cm deep & in rows 1.5m apart, and once they start growing, earth the stalks up to help stabilise them.

They will put out a bounty of tall stemmed sunny yellow flowers in Autumn, a late season boon for pollinators, and its seeds are so high in fat and protein they are included in many birdseed mixes.

Humans prize the plant because it produces knobbly white or red tubers rich in iron, that are harvested in Autumn and Winter, often after the first frosts. One Jerusalem artichoke tuber might produce thirty, so unless you have a large appetite for them, more often than not, once in the ground it is there to stay.

Jerusalem artichokes are perhaps best known for certain digestive side effects caused by a carbohydrate inulin, which feeds our gut bacteria but is not easily broken down during digestion. Some tips for working around this are to eat them lacto-fermented, or to start off the season eating small portions alongside lashings of probiotic yoghurt…

#jerusalemartichoke #growyourown #organicveggies #wildedibles #londongarden #getgrowing #nodig #herbs #urbangrowing #sustainablegrowing

On 12th March we will be welcoming back @compost_m

On 12th March we will be welcoming back @compost_mentis_coop for the second workshop of our community composting project. This time the focus is on the humble worm! Learn about the role worms play in the sustainable garden, their link to good soil health and how to build a wormery. There will be worm inspired art activities for our youngest visitors too. Grab your free tickets using the link in bio.

Thank you to @socialfarmsandgardens and @grind for funding this project!

#sustainablegardening #soilhealth #biodiversity #wildlifegarden #communityeducation

At our Tuesday volunteer session this week, we pla

At our Tuesday volunteer session this week, we planted Jerusalem artichoke and we also laid a fleece down on top of the empty vegetable beds. (It was very much a group effort).

This will protect the goodness of the soil (preventing it from rushing away in the rain). It also helps with weed suppression. The fleece will rest there until we are ready to plant out. Thanks to our volunteers for embracing so many new experiences each week!

#sheepswool #volunteerwithus #protectingsoil #londongarden #communitygarden #wandsworthlife #sw18 #wintergardening #winterinlondon #earlsfield

Exciting news! We are hosting a Spring Festival o

Exciting news! We are hosting a Spring Festival on Sunday April 30th from 12pm -3pm - what’s more, tickets are free! Link in bio.

There will be food, drink, nature based crafts for kids & opportunities to learn about sustainable urban growing.

If you’re curious about Paradise, our festivals provide a great opportunity to explore the site, meet the team and find out more. Book your ticket today. All are welcome!

#spring #communityfestival #londongarden #urbangarden #wandsworth #earlsfield #sw18 #gather #organicgardening #nodig

HUGEL BED. As we grow food and care for the garden

HUGEL BED.
As we grow food and care for the garden organically, we rely on the quality of our soil health and the compost we make on site contributes significantly to this.

Compost comes in many shapes and sizes, and at Paradise we have been working to bring variety to the compost we produce here, to feed a healthy, complex soil food web that can support our local ecology.

We have five thermophilic composting bins, filled with our own green waste and contributions from the local community. We have a Hot Compost bin for food waste, and a Compost toilet. Our paths and raised bed edges are topped up every few months with woodchip, which continually breaks down and feeds our trees and shrubs. We leave piles of wood here and there in our woodland edges to gently rot down over time, providing insect habitats.

Over the past few months, we have also started a Hugel bed. Hügelkultur is a permaculture method for building productive beds, from the German meaning ‘hill cultivation’, where essentially you grow on top of a mound of composting material.

Hugel beds can be made by digging a trench, filling it with layers of woody & green matter, then compost, then crops. Because we practice No Dig, we are building ours straight onto the ground near our raised beds dedicated to perennial crops, as a kind of long-term nutrient & moisture bank. Let’s see how it goes!

#communitycomposting #londongardening #nodig #thermophiliccomposting #hotcompost #sw18 #hugelbed #wandsworthlife #communitygarden #soilhealth

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