For the fourth year BRAG and Livingstone Road Community Allotment took part in the national It’s Your Neighbourhood Awards, organised by the Royal Horticultural Society. Carol Miller and Jenny Brewer visited Livingstone Community Allotment and then walked to the planters on Wellington Road, and then on to the barrier planters at the end of Calthorpe […]
Dear Friends, After 4 years in the ‘hot seat’ running Livingstone Rd Community Allotment Project and Bloom in Birchfield I am now moving on to pastures new. I’d like to sincerely thank everyone who has helped build the project up to what it is now, over the years many people have contributed their time, energy […]
Hi All, well the Spring Newsletter is now out, with updates on past projects, news on future initiatives and an invitation to our community event this Saturday on the cover…let us know what you think! Electronic version attached or pick up a printed version at the event. Hope to see you there! PS Thanks to […]
Our Spring Event will be on Sat 2nd April 1-4pm at the Pavilion building. Before the event we will be distributing our Spring Newsletter, so if you have anything you’d like us to promote please get in touch asap
Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to all our friends and supporters! Here’s hoping everyone has had a productive growing season! The picture shows a handful of beets we have taken up recently and over the last few weeks we’ve taken the last of the chillis from the poly tunnel, the one and only Shark […]
Just a quick note to say that after a very busy Summer and successful Autumn event (pics to follow), we are taking a week off for staff holidays, so there will be NO allotment sesson on Wed 14th Oct. The NEXT session will be Wed 21st Oct at 10am. We may well have green tomatos […]
We hope you can join us for our Harvest Fete on Sat 12th Sept, drop in any time between 12-4pm at the Pavilion building at Livingstone Rd Allotments. There will be all the usual fun stuff like home made allotment soup, art and crafts, poetry competition, veg displays and tours of the plot, not to […]
We were recently contacted by Dr Michael Hardman from the University of Salford who wanted to find out more about our initiatives to improve the neighbourhood in Birchfield. He calls it Guerrilla Gardending, we just call it Community Planting, but the result is the same, better places for people. Here is what he had to […]
This picture shows a formerly neglected border that we weeded and planted up with some tough little Hebes last year. Since then a new tenant has moved in and has added to the planting with their own colourful bedding plants and is now maintaining this space. We hope to take over more neglected corners and […]
There’s less than one week to go to our Spring Community Event and the launch of Bloom in Birchfield 2015! On Saturday 18th April between 1-4pm we’ll be at the Pavilion Building at Livingstone Road Allotments and everyone is welcome to come and join us. As well as arts and craft activities, homemade food and […]
You are invited to join us on Saturday 18th April between 1-4pm at the Pavilion building, Livingstone Road Allotments, to help kick start the Bloom in Birchfield 2015 campaign. We want to fill everybody’s front gardens with the colours of beautiful flowers and with useful and edible plants. On the event day there will be; […]
This event is being run by one of our fellow Big Local partners, Hope Community Acupuncture Centre, and would benefit anyone who wants to take more responsibility for their wellbeing. More details and how to book are below… How to Enjoy Health & Introductory Yoga -FREE EVENT, Tuesday 14th April 2015 4 -6 PM Dr […]
We are working in partnership with Handsworth Helping Hands on a ‘Skip-it Don’t Tip-it’ day on Grosvenor Road on Monday 16th Feb starting at 10.00am and finishing about 2.30pm. Residents are invited to use these free skips to get rid of rubbish & unwanted items. HHH volunteers will be there to help and lend a […]
…no doubt there are lots of houses smelling of citrus and spices now, from the oranges, lemons and limes we decorated with ribbons and whole cloves…
Wed 10th Dec 4-6pm is nearly here and the date marks our Christmas celebration at the Allotment Pavilion. We hope to see you there, please feel free to invite anyone you think may like it! We will be making clove scented oranges, homemade Christmas Cards and finishing off the mosaic pavers we started at our […]
You are invited to our Autumn Fete on Sat 11th Oct at Livingstone Road Allotments Pavilion from 12-4pm. This will be our third annual community event and we will be having vegetable competitions, art and crafts for families, home cooked food and lots more! We will be launching our brand new recipe book that came […]
On Friday 11th July the “It’s Your Neighbourhood” assessor will be visiting Birchfield to view the efforts of local residents in making the area a cleaner and greener place to live. Birchfield Residents Action Group (BRAG) are leading on this campaign, called ‘Bloom in Birchfield’, with support from Birchfield Big Local and other local partners, […]
Birchfield Residents Action Group has entered Birchfield into Britain in Bloom 2014 and we need your help!
Every Wednesday between Jan 29th and March 26th we’ll be cooking and serving simply cooked food at Livingstone Road Allotments. You will find us in the Pavilion Building which is inside the allotment gates (just knock on the door and introduce yourself!). Each week we cook a different dish featuring allotment grown produce (where possible […]
Today was our first day back on the plot this year and we started off with a walk about to see what had happened since we broke up for Xmas. There’s been a lot of wind and rain, to say the least, so it was not totally surprising to find Sidney the Scarecrow flat on […]
We are doing a special Christmas Lunch Club on Wed 18th Dec from 12.30 -2.00pm where we will be serving freshly cooked food and having a little celebration – everyone is welcome. That will be our last Lunch Club of the year but we will be running more community food sessions in 2014, details to […]
Every Wednesday between now and Dec 18th we are serving simple, freshly cooked food at Livingstone Road Allotments. You will find us in the Pavilion Building just inside the allotment gates, opposite Broadway Dance School (just knock on the door). Anyone is welcome to come and join us between 12.00-1.30pm and for a voluntary donation […]
As a result of smoke from allotment fires blowing into their playground, we asked children from the Holy Trinity Primary school to do some posters to help us get the message across to plotholders that this is a problem and how to avoid it. There are set rules about when fires can take place on […]
Birchfield Residents Action Group is organising our annual community event on the allotments and we are inviting you along to make the day a success! The Summer Fete is on Saturday 14th September from 12.00 – 5.00pm at the Pavilion, Livingstone Road. Please tell all your family and friends, everyone is welcome and entry is […]
Today we did another session with Rachel from Cuffufle, this time with our regular group and a few guests. As well as making fresh Coleslaw and Salsa which we potted up for everyone to take home – along with the recipes so they can easily make their own – we did a Taste Test. This […]
In the first of two sessions Rachel from Cuffufle, who makes a sells relishes, preserves and cordials all created using natural (and mainly local) ingredients, came to share her knowledge and lead a relish making workshop. Parents from Holy Trinity School and drop-in guests made up the participants and it started with Rachel talking about […]
Today we took a bundle of trees and shrubs that had been donated by Food Forest Brum (and had been heeled in on the allotment for a while) round to Holy Trinity Primary School in a wheel barrow, along with some stakes and ties, spades and watering cans. We’d already supplied labels with the names […]
We’ve had a few weeks recently where we really couldn’t do anything outside and today was another one of those days! Having snowed (again!) late last week, the white blanket is slowly retreating, but it’s still very cold and icy. Went out on an inspection tour and took a few photos around the site, some […]
A couple of us went to a Sowing New Seeds event at a church hall in Stechford to find out what it is all about and we had a fascinating time! We met lots of interesting people who are doing community food growing projects across the city. Amongst them was early community allotment pioneer Eunice […]
It was snowing again today and it was pretty cold to go with it! A few brave souls headed out onto the plot as we had some trees donated by the Food Forest Brum project that we needed to heel in until we are ready to plant them properly. Luckily the ground wasn’t frozen solid, […]
We were starting to worry a little bit that if the snow didn’t go, we wouldn’t be able to see the litter. But it rained over the weekend and the blanket of snow that had obscured all the rubbish for the last two weeks melted away in time for our Community Litter pick. After having […]
Another very cold day on the allotment! The ground was solid and there was little we could do outside except put up some signage for our forthcoming litter pick and have a look around. It was quiet on the allotments, with no-one else around. Except a fox we spotted on the other side of the […]
First community session of the New Year today, so we took a walk-about to see how the plot was growing and what’s new. Our Garlic, Red Onions and Winter Broad Beans are all sending up fresh green shoots and looking very healthy, great to see the new growth! We also put in Winter cabbages, under […]
Today was our final session for 2012. What a year, we’ve grown great crops of sweetcorn, pumpkins and cucumbers, not to mention courgettes, runner beans and rhubarb! We’ve involved dozens of people in growing food, with all the benefits of working outside on the allotments. We’ve run an incredibly successful Harvest Festival community event where […]
As part of our Small Grants award from Keepmoat plc and Midland Heart we’ve had a couple of sessions with artist Lizzy Bean who worked with participants to create a community collage for the Pavilion where we meet. On the day of the Harvest Festival we set up a table of art materials and Lizzy […]
Lots of people came to our Harvest Festival event on Nov 3rd, including children from Holy Trinity School, local residents, plot holders from the allotment and friends and family – a really good mix! Luckily the day was bright and stayed dry, despite being a bit cold. To warm us up we had a big […]
On Tues Oct 30th artist’s agency Redhawk Logistica took their Potato Typesetting set into Holy Trinity School. All twenty six letters of the alphabet were carefully carved from a bag of spuds. Redhawk worked with a whole class of children who had taken a tour of the allotments a few weeks earlier and done some […]
Everyone is welcome when we come together at Livingstone Road allotments to celebrate the abundance given to us by nature – an antidote to all this austerity! The Pavillion will be open (come to the Livingstone Road entrance, near the ‘No Entry’ end of Havelock Rd, opposite Broadway Dance School, B20 3LL), there is ‘on-street’ […]
Today we tested out our new camping stoves – purchased as part of our Gold Award from the Small Environmental Grants Scheme – so we can make herbal tea infusions on the plot and have tasting sessions with our own produce as part of the community sessions we run. We were told the best way to eat sweetcorn is to […]
We took a group to Edible Eastside in Digbeth to see another kind of community food growing project, everything is grown in raised beds and the site is surrounded by industry, with the Grand Union Canal running alongside. We had a tour of the gardens before meeting up with artist and chef Lizzy Bean who […]
Livingstone Road Community Allotment 