Work day at the Old Moat Garden Centre, Horton Lane, Epsom KT19 8PQ to be held this year starting in April on the second Saturday of each month between 10am and 12 noon.

The dates for 2020 then are:-

At present all this is in abeyance because of social distancing rules

July 11th
August 8th
September 12th
October 10th

For those of you who are not aware the Old Moat is run by Richmond Fellowship and they do fantastic work with people suffering from mental health problems, offering the opportunity to enrol for formal or informal training and work experience programmes in a realistic, commercial, but supportive environment. It offers training in nursery stock growing, propagation, vegetable and fruit production as well as contract gardening and cafe training, including food hygiene, barista training and food preparation.

Bob Frisby, Harry Corben and Tony Axelrod attended an open day at the Centre and heard first hand from many people who had benefited from the Centre, which was an inspiration.

The Centre have plans to upgrade/expand their facilities and the plan is for us to help in their walled garden, with restoration work.  This will working on seed beds and include some lugging.  We will be supervised by  the Centre and those attending should wear stout boots and if possible bring some good gardening gloves and wear doesn’t matter clothes.  Tools will be provided by the Centre.

Once restored, the walled garden will be used for money raising events and will be rented to local businesses and individuals to hold outdoor or tented events.

It would be great if we could continue to get a good group of us from Epsom Rotary / Associates  and Rotaractors, so please do come along.

Put the dates in your diary!

Clive Richardson