April is the start of the summer term for the gardening courses at WEN, with outings to local gardens and parks as part of ‘Discover the Past, Present and Future of Your Garden’ and a seasonal focus on salads and herbs in ‘How to Grow Fruit, Vegetables and Herbs’.

Also at WEN, the Falkland Road Organic Gardeners have been making sure the polytunnel is in full production to get ready for our Spring Fair on 11th May. You’ll find vegetable, herb and flower plants for sale, and the gardeners will be on hand in case you need advice on how to look after them.

Getting ready for the plant sale at the WEN Spring Fair

The months of rainy weather have caused very wet conditions over at St James Community Garden, but our intrepid gardeners were not deterred from harvesting the rhubarb and sowing wildflowers for pollinators. They have also been making compost with the help of St James Centre.

On 8th April, Naomi began running a 5 week ‘Help Save the Planet’ course for people supported by Wirral Mencap. Topics covered so far include transport, energy (with an easy read list of tips to reduce energy use), waste and recycling, and green and blue spaces. The final session will be about food. The Mencap group have been inspired to book a trip to Gillmoss Recycling Discover Centre and plant a tree this winter.

Detail of fabric and stitching at the slow stitching workshop

The monthly Transition Cafe took place on 16th April at the Quaker Meeting House in Liverpool. Speakers at the event told about the creative ways they have developed to reduce single use plastics and the pollution caused by our throw away society. The first talk outlined the Plastic Free Communities toolkit, which has been used in various places, including Plastic Free Neston. This was followed by a presentation about Plastic Tactics, an organisation which runs community events to show low tech ways to repurpose waste plastic to make new and useful things, such as earrings, book covers, flower pots, plant labels, bowls and coasters.

The Transition Cafe is a joint enterprise between Liverpool Quakers, Transition Liverpool, Faiths4Change and Wirral Environmental Network. The next session will be on 21st May. Subscribe to the Transition Liverpool email newsletter to receive details.

Plastic Tactics run a Plastic Playgroup where you can learn to make new items from waste plastic

On 19th April we played host to a ‘Love Your Leftovers’ talk and demonstration of food waste reduction techniques. The event was part of this year’s Cool Wirral: Climate Action programme. Everyone who took part left happy and enjoyed the food! The feedback was very positive for both parts of the session.

The talk was “really informative”, with “easy to do ideas” and “simple things that I wouldn’t have thought of before”. After the demonstration of making meals from foods often leftover in the fridge, the attendees “really enjoyed trying the samples”, and said it was “fantastic”, “thought provoking”, that they had “learnt a lot” and were “definitely going to try things”. Thanks to Spot and Stripe Kitchen for such an inspiring workshop.

Enjoying sampling the food at the Love Your Leftovers workshop

Congratulations to Neston Earth Group for organising the Neston Earth Festival on 21st April and thanks for having us! We enjoyed being part of a great event. We had an information stall and a table for the WEN Crafters to sell their handmade items.

Perle ready to tell the festival visitors about WEN.

Handmade items from the WEN Crafters group, created using donated and repurposed materials.

Devil’s bit scabious sculpture

WEN is already a Wirral FUSS donation point for preloved uniforms and on 30th April, we popped to the FUSS hub at St Hilary’s Church, Claremount Road, Wallasey to pick up some extra items of uniform for local schools that can be passed on at our Spring Fair. We met the lovely Judy, Marie, and Deni – a few of the FUSS volunteers at the St Hilary’s hub. Their FUSS hub started a year ago. Since then they have passed on nearly 4500 items to families with pupils at local schools. The St Hilary’s hub is open on the last Tuesday of each month, 11am – 2pm.

There are FUSS hubs all over the Wirral, or anyone in need of preloved uniform can request it via the FUSS website. For hub locations, and information about donating and requesting uniform visit wirralfuss.co.uk

Judy, Marie, and Deni at the Wirral FUSS hub at St Hilary’s church in Wallasey

As well as the Spring Fair, we’ve been busy planning for other events taking place next month. WEN Trustee Anne will be leading a walk, as part of the Wirral Walking Festival.

The WEN Spring Fair takes place the following day, on Saturday 11th May. Stalls will include:

At the end of the month, from 28th to 30th May, Luke Jerram’s Gaia artwork is coming to Birkenhead Park. WEN will be involved in the programme of community events to mark the occasion, with ‘Wirral Cares for Gaia Earth’. After you have been inspired by looking at the giant model of the Earth, come to the gallery at the Visitor Centre and find out from local environmental groups what you can do to help protect our planet.