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We started our new nature and gardening focused group in early September with thanks to funding from Awards for All. Each week is themed and so far we've covered seeds and leaves, with looking at nature journaling and mindfulness for week three. Each session is seasonally themed with readings, poetry and art based around the time of the year. This Gather and Grow course will be running up to Christmas, and we may look at putting on another set of sessions in the new year for

We had the lovely Sassy from Eve Apple Press here on Thursday 18th September pressing the apples that the volunteers harvested from our heritage orchard. We will be selling the pasteurised apple juice at future events - a taste of summer!

On Thursday 17th September we opened our doors as part of Heritage week. This was the first time we've done this and it was a great success with visitors arriving all day from when we opened to when we closed for the day. It was the first time that we've talked to the public about the research we've been doing about our site and the exciting stories we've been uncovering about local shipbuilder William Thickett, Tommy Tickler and his orchards and artist-gardener Gertrude Jeky

A selection of autumn offers for the wreath making. On Friday 18th September we once again welcomed the Alzheimers Society for another seasonal wreath-making session. For the autumn wreaths we used rosemary, twisted willow, laurel and other flowers and greenery from one of our volunteer's gardens. We will be doing more workshops in the run up to Christmas so keep an eye on our Facebook page for details.

Apples in our heritage orchard. On Thursday 17th September 10-3pm we will be open to visitors, for the first time, as part of this year's Heritage Open Days. We will have displays about the site's heritage as well as apple pressing. If you've not been to Green Futures before then do drop in and we'll show you around! For more information visit https://www.heritageopendays.org.uk/submission-event/apples-plums-and-pigs.html

Our very green loo... If you visit our site you will see lots of house plants that have been donated or propagated recently, they seem to like it here as they are all thriving, particularly the spider plant in our toilet as it's exploding with little spider babies!

We are excited to announce that starting on Wednesday 16 September we will be running a new weekly group from 1-3pm. Gather and Grow is a calendar of seasonal and social activities themed around nature, creativity and gardening put on with funding from Awards For All and delivered by artist-educator Sarah Palmer. We already have built up a thriving craft group that meets twice weekly, we want to build on that success of being creative and making community with Gather and Grow

Site in the last week of August. Our site really needed the rain we had last week, and now the temperatures have dropped there's a distinct feeling of a season change in the air - these teasel heads have gone to seed, and they will be a welcome food source for the goldfinches that visit our green space and community garden.

On Wednesday 2nd September 2026 at 2pm we'll be having our AGM with our board members and staff, Charley and Sarah, all welcome.

Last week our volunteers prepared veg boxes with fresh produce from our site all ready to go out to ECHO and Oasis Nunsthorpe food bank, in the boxes are brambles, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbages, spring onions, radishes and aubergines - such a colourful haul!

On Tuesday 28th July we put on our first HAF session of the summer with a group of children and parents from the Oasis Community Hub in Nunsthorpe. We went on a nature trail, did some outdoor activities, did some mindfulness colouring created some habitats, did an eye-spy and sat around our 'campfire in the woods'. It was lovely for the site to be used for the benefit of our local community, and full of people enjoying our nature space. If you'd like to hire our space for nat

We are growing tomatoes in this bay with marigolds as they are great for repelling common tomato pests, they also look lovely and fill any space in the soil so less weeding is needed. We grow organically on site, so no weedkillers or fertilisers, and we water with what we get pumped from our bore hole that taps into the water table. Tomatoes and marigolds in good company.

This is Glenn, who joined us as a volunteer a few months ago. He's been helping out with invaluable maintenance tasks on site, but also been learning about gardening and growing. A few weeks ago he planted some carrot seeds, and says that he's enjoyed sowing something and then nurturing and watering it.

On Monday Charley and I had a day trip out to get some ideas and advice from a couple of amazing folks - Alison Walling from Lincolnshire Willow who showed us around the farm where she works next to the Rivers Rase and Ancholme, and then in the afternoon we went to visit the ever-amazing Ernie at Your Place Grimsby, if you've not been to this East Marsh oasis then do go! Where the River Rase meets the River Ancholme. Your Place in Wellington St in Grimsby.

This morning we had a lovely set of visitors, the nursery class from Great Coates Primary School, who had a lovely time wildlife spotting in our orchard and woodland, doing a bear hunt, apple printing and sowing basil seeds. I read bits from The Magic Garden by local author Josie Moon as we were making our way around the nature walk! The nursery class with their pots of basil seeds.

A selection of our raffle prizes - all in all there was £1000-worth! We drew our summer raffle on June 30 - thank you to everyone who donated great prizes including afternoon teas, golfing rounds, food and drink, compost, lawnmower servicing, GTFC tickets - we we were really well supported by local businesses, so thank you! Prize winners have been contacted and we are sorting out getting prizes to winners!

Our late June apples. Did you know that our site is home to a heritage apple orchard? After the Second World War when agriculture intensified orchards and hedgerows were seen as a hindrance to modern ways of farming and were removed. The view at the time was also that other countries such as America and South Africa could do apple growing better than here. We now import three-quarters of the 500,000 tonnes of apples we eat a year, and the varieties we bite into are now much m

Cinnabar moth caterpillars on ragwort. Poplar hawk. Mullein caterpillar. On Saturday 20 June to celebrate midsummer we worked with some of our talented local naturalists Mick, Paul, Dave, Andrew, John, Tim and Martin, to do a bioblitz on site. Apart from being great fun, this is was an important activity. We need to have a baseline so we are more aware of what we have on site, and this means that we can make more informed decisions about rewilding areas or making more habitat

Our stall at the event on June 10 2026. We attended the Humber Environment Conference at CATCH in Stallingborough on Wednesday 10 June talking to attendees about our community garden and listening to some great speakers including Lucy Marshall from the Environment Agency, Linda Whicker from the University of Hull and Andrew Gadd from Footprint Services.

There are times, with this site, when you have the place to yourself, that the genius loci, or spirit of place bubbles gently to the surface. 112 years ago before Green Futures was the Vanson Centre council nursery, before it was Bradley Nurseries, before it was the retirement dream of William Thickett, this area was a meadow and pinfold in Bradley Parish; alive with grasses, wildflowers, insects and birdsong, glowing year after year under midsummer sunsets. This acreage was