Along with the award, a piece of crystal with Judy’s name upon it, Harrow in LEAF received a cheque
for £200!

Harrow’s Heroes is an annual event created by Harrow Council as a positive celebration of the amazing contribution of all Harrow's volunteers. The aim of the award is to thank volunteers and celebrate the valuable contribution they make and to recognise the work undertaken by Harrow volunteers in building a stronger community.

Last year, Judy Long, our then secretary, won the Environmental Volunteer of the Year award for her work in developing a tomato trials bed using sustainable watering methods.

We recommend all charities and volunteer organisations consider nominating their hard working volunteers for this award. There can only be 6 category winners, but everyone who is nominated gets to attend this prestigious event and will receive a certificate in honour of the work they have done so it is a wonderful way of letting them know how much they are valued.

The children of a local school have built this amazing plastic bottle greenhouse on their allotment site, and Friday 26th June saw the grand opening party, complete with strawberry tea...

The driving forces behind the project have been classroom assistant Mrs Fink and parent and Chair of Governors Ms Rundle, and the greenhouse was based on an article seen in a magazine. It took the children of Vaughan School six months to collect the 1500 plastic bottles needed to build the walls. The bottles were washed and the labels removed.

The corner posts of the 8’ x 6’ greenhouse were concreted in and frames for the sides, gables and roof were built by parents and teachers. On April 1st all the bottles had their bottoms carefully cut out. May 29th was the day that seven children from year 7, and four year 10 children from Whitmore School put the structure together, with the help of some parents. With the frames on the ground, the bottles were linked together on canes and stapled to the frames. The frames were then attached to the corner posts, and the structure completed with the gable and roof frames.

Liam, Shakti, Connor and Joshu’waa – four of the team who constructed the greenhouse.

The greenhouse provides valuable protection for tender crops and for raising plants from seed, and at the moment this cosy environment is being used to grow tomatoes, peppers and herbs.

Children from year 7 come over to the allotment in their breaks to water the plants, and groups of children from all
years in the school, from the nursery class to year 7 come to work and learn on the site.

The party to celebrate the completion of the greenhouse on Friday saw a gathering of children from year 6, parents
and teachers from Vaughan and Whitmore Schools, and a photographer from the local press, who were all given a
warm welcome with cups of tea, and strawberries and cream. The children gave guided tours of their allotment, and
most of the adults left the party knowing a lot more about growing veg than they did when they arrived!

I can’t think of a better way to celebrate the building of this magnificent structure, an eco-friendly and low cost
greenhouse, a marvellous way to recycle plastic bottles, and a credit to all the children and adults involved in the project.

If you’d like to build your own recycled greenhouse, try the following link
www.reapscotland.org.uk/reports/greenhouse v1.pdf I hope yours turns out as well as the one built by these dedicated
and enthusiastic children.

Earth Project taken over by Shaw Trust

The Shaw Trust officially took over the Earth Project at Newton Park East allotments on 31st August 2011 and will continue to run this Horticultural Project.

Harrow in Leaf are happy to continue their support of this initiative.

The Shaw Trust will be continuing to run the site as a Horticultural Project.

•  Read about the Shaw Trust project in Harrow

•  Previous stories on the Earth Project

Museum Gardening Club continued

This dedicated band of volunteers, led by Barbara Ferguson, spend the mornings on the first and third Tuesday of the month working to maintain and improve the area surrounding these historic buildings, and certainly succeed in providing a colourful and welcoming setting for a visit there.

The donation has enabled the club to lay a stepping stone path and to plant up a delightfull flower bed at a corner of the barn.

The museum provides the perfect backdrop to the annual horticultural show held there by Harrow in LEAF every August Bank Holiday weekend. The two-day show also features live entertainment, bee-keeping displays and show, craft and charity stalls, and fun activities and rides for the children.

The gardeners would like to recruit more members to their club to help them keep up their high standards, so if you can spare some time, why not go along to the garden on a Tuesday morning, contact Barbara on 020 8933 6668, or the Museum, on 020 8861 2626.
You’d be very welcome; you don’t have to be an expert gardener, and coffee and cakes are supplied!

New Plots at Kenton Rec

In response to the pressure for new allotment plots in the borough, the council has recently extended the site at Kenton Recreation Ground.

Many years ago the plots there stretched way across the park, indeed the old maps show numbering up to 91.
In more recent times the number had shrunk, until there were only 9 x 5 pole plots remaining, with the rest being taken back into the park.

Now, however, a further 15 x 5 pole plots have been added.
The Council weed-killed and rotovated the ground, and extended the fencing to enclose the whole site, with an extra gate added into the far end of the site.
      
With the help of members of the Larches Trust, who have taken a plot there, the ground was marked out, and with woodchip supplied by the council, paths between the plots were laid. Extra standpipes and water tanks are due to be installed, and all the new plots have been leased out.

The whole site now looks immaculate, and with the waiting lists in the borough      
now standing at over 600, this will give 15 new people a chance to ‘grow their own’.

Kenton Lane Allotments Target for Police Murder Investigation

Plot holders watched aghast as police cordoned off a plot on the otherwise ‘model’ allotment site in Kenton Road, and began to clear the site for further investigation.

In 2001 an investigation started into the disappearance of a Mr. Banfield of Locket Road in Harrow.  Nearly 10 years on we can only wonder what has come to light that has brought their investigation team to this well-kept and well-attended allotment site.

Harrow in LEAF became aware of the police attending Kenton Lane Allotments on the morning of  Wednesday the 7th of July (2010) and sent their own team of investigators down to find out what was occurring.

“On entering the site we found a large transit van with a telescopic camera on it. They were trying to take an over head photograph to see if the ground below had been disturbed”,  but one allotment holder on the site said the ground was far too bumpy to get a useful image and they then started  to clear the site to investigate further.

An appeal for information as to the whereabouts of Mr. Banfield was made by police in September 2009, this was followed more recently by the missing gentleman’s wife and daughter being arrested in Canterbury and questioned on suspicion of Mr Banfield's murder and on fraud charges.

It is believed that the allotment plot, within the Kenton Road Site, was previously rented out to Mr. Banfield’s father-in-law, who we think may have passed away that same year. Last year, the family home in Locket Road was investigated, resulting in the excavation of the rear garden.

“Now it would appear that the investigations have moved on to this beautiful allotment site, and from what we can gather they will be excavating this site to see if they might discover the remains of the missing man” one of our investigators said.

A call to Harrow Council’s allotment officer produced no leads for Harrow in LEAF as Mr. Slavin stated he has been instructed not to give out any information with regards to the Kenton Lane site.

The police descended on the site during the morning and cleared it all. “The weeds were very high as the most recent tenant has been unwell” said Pam from plot 8. “There was an old shanty shack – you couldn’t really call it a shed”, which has been on that plot for many years now,  “but when I came here today it was gone”. Pam remembers the tenant from 2001 very well, but there have been other tenants on the site from that time till now.

All the excitement and intrigue is likely to continue, as it is expected that Police will excavate the plot tomorrow [Thursday 8th].

Update - Despite almost a week of digging, nothing was found on the plot, and police have now abandoned the search at the site, although the investigation in to the disappearance of a Mr. Banfield is still ongoing.