Garforth Community Garden at the Gascoigne
*The Garforth Colour Garden*
In the Autumn of 2023 I was given the opportunity by Eco-friendly Garforth to use a patch of wasteland to create a dye/ink garden. This page will be used to keep a record of the project.
Video made for Eco Friendly Garforth by Kelly of Tiny Branch Photography
About the garden
Although the land had previously been used as an allotment. It hadn't been used for years and had become overgrown with thick Blackberry briar. There were large amounts of broken glass, metal debris and rubbish, making it an unsafe place for people and wildlife. A group of local volunteers began the work of clearing and cleaning up the land.
Most of this work had been done when I began to volunteer in the Autumn of 2023, with half of the space already beginning to take shape.
Once the land had been made safer I began in March 2024 with the help of some of the volunteers to create the dye/ink garden (which I am now going to call the Garforth Colour garden).
The dye garden will be a learning process. I have made my owns inks for several years, and dabbled with using natural dyes, but I am not an expert. I will use this opportunity to learn and share the process with others. After a little research I created a list of plants that could be used for dyeing. Some of the volunteers already had some of these growing in their own gardens and brought them to add to the garden. I also had some seeds for Woad given to me by a friend, Agrimony and St John's Wort which I planted up in the hope they would germinate.
I made a map in my sketchbook to keep a record of where and what we planted. I will record what works and also what fails as the project progresses. At the moment there is no particular plan, but as time goes by that will happen organically.
2025
'Drawing from Nature' 12 months in the garden - workshops held once per month in the Community Garden funded by @ecofriendlygarforth
'Garforth Nature Journal Club. A monthly Nature Journal Club held once per month on a Saturday - funded by Leeds City Council Cultural Investment Programme.
2024
Drawing workshop - Open day April 2024 - drawing some of the items that were dug up or unearthed by worms.
Great Yorkshire Creature Count - June 2024
Pages in my Nature Journals - 2024
Dyeing with nettles - September 2024