Fairfield is thriving!

It’s been quite a year for Fairfield community gardening. As reported in previous issues of Fairfield Matters, this year we entered the RHS ‘It’s Your Neighbourhood’ scheme for the first time. In August we met with the ‘Anglia In Bloom’ representative, who assessed our progress in three key areas of Community Participation, Environmental Responsibility and Gardening Achievement. Our overall score was 72 per cent which put us at level 4 of 5 – Thriving. This is a fantastic result for Fairfield and super recognition for the hard work put in by a small group of volunteers who keep our environment looking good, improve biodiversity and create and maintain green spaces for us to enjoy. I went along to the Anglia In Bloom Autumn Seminar in Bury St Edmunds to represent our It’s Your Neighbourhood team and collect Fairfield’s certificate.

As part of the Its Your Neighbourhood report we were given good, constructive feedback on areas for improvement, which we will be using as part of our planning for the coming year with a view to improving our score and more importantly continuing to improve our local environment.

Bulb planting

October is really the start of the gardening year and across Fairfield and I am sure that many of you have been planting bulbs in your gardens to provide that early spring colour. In the last couple of weeks we have also been planting native Daffodil bulbs around Fairfield – on the border of the West Orchard and Hardy Way, in the Community Garden and outside the Community Hall. At the time of writing, 3,000 bulbs have been planted with another 1,000 to go.

The bulbs were purchased with the money raised from Apple Day and planted by volunteers. This is a scheme that we hope to extend to other areas of Fairfield in future years. Thank you to all the volunteers who joined us and helped with the planting.

Neighbourly sharing

Finally, I wanted to draw attention to the new Fairfield Seeds and Cuttings Swap Club, which you can join on Facebook. This super initiative has been set up by a Fairfield resident to enable all enthusiastic gardeners across the parish to easily swap any excess plants and seeds – a great scheme, and who doesn’t like a free plant!

Sara Chick Sara Chick, Fairfield’s It’s Your Neighbourhood Coordinator, has agreed to keep us up to date with news and developments in this new regular column.