Hayling College May 2nd

Straight from Hayling Park we went to Hayling College to visit their ‘Growing Together’ project.

This is a project that brings together pupils from the College to grow their own fruit and vegetables and to keep and look after about 40 free-range chickens.

Some of the funding has come from Hayling Lions Club, so the official opening of the new, and quite large, fruit and vegetable cage was performed by the President of Hayling Lions, Gill Sutherland.

Having been given the bird!

We were all shown around by a happy band of very enthusiastic pupils, who took great delight in showing us around, and also getting out the newly hatched chicks for us to hold, not to mention the full grown chickens! Most of the chickens are rescue birds, and have come from the British Hen Welfare Trust.

We also saw the new, large, poly tunnel, where they are growing such diverse things as Purple Sprouting Broccoli and Strawberrys.

Much of the funding for this project has come from the Hayling Lions, the National Lottery, the Hayling Island Horticultural Society, Sainsbury’s, the Woodland Trust and Havant Borough Council.

The College is to be congratulated on what has been achieved, and in selling us 1/2 a dozen eggs!

Tree Planting May 2nd

This afternoon, in glorious sunshine, Elaine and I were in Hayling Park, near the community centre, to carry on the tradition, begun by the Charter Mayor of havant, John Derben, in 1974.

Since then there has been an annual tree planting, usually an Ash in Legion Field.

Today, having been met by George Fulcher and his wife ex-Mayor June, the tree to be planted was a Tibetan Cherry. Oddly enough the Tibetan cherry originates from the Sichuan and Yunnan provinces of China, rather than Tibet itself.

This was the first tree to be planted by any Mayor in Hayling Park, this being due to the disease which is affecting Ash trees across the country. I was therefore given the honour to plant the first non-Ash tree since 1974. It is a lovely specimen and should blend in well with the other 175 trees, of 31 different species, in the park.

Ready to go!

The first spadeful of soil.

With George and Elaine, and ‘The Trees of Hayling Park’ booklet.