On Saturday 27^th October 2018, Braehead Community Garden will be holding its second Pumpkin Festival – and you and your family are invited to join in the fun.

Pumpkin Carving Workshop.  11am-1pm

If your carving skills stop at triangles for noses and circles for eyes, then bring your pumpkin to our PUMPKIN CARVING WORKSHOP between 11am and 1pm.  We’ll have carving kits, templates and some artistic volunteers to help you create a pumpkin lantern to impress.

The event is FREE for Garden Access Pass holders and their children, £2 for non-members.  Don’t forget to bring your own pumpkin!

Pumpkin Cookery Workshop.  1pm-2.30pm

Ever wondered if you could do something with the leftover pumpkin after a carving session?  Come along to our cookery workshop and get some inspiration for recipes and then help creating delightful dishes!  Free for members, £2 for non-members.

Pumpkin Show (entries to be submitted at Community Garden between 1.30pm and 3pm)

Enter your carved pumpkin into our PUMPKIN SHOW and you could win a prize in one of our show categories.  Hand your entry into the garden and we’ll judge the best, before showing all pumpkins in the evening lantern show.  All pumpkins can be picked up on Sunday 30^th between 1pm and 2pm.  You can enter in any or all of the following categories:

• Scariest Pumpkin
• Funniest Pumpkin
• Best Pumpkin that references a Movie
• Best Pumpkin carved by a (supervised) under-10 year old
• Best Pumpkin carved by a (supervised) under-15 year old

The winners will be announced and on display at the lantern festival.

Pumpkin Lantern Festival.  6pm-8pm

Come join us in the garden for a dazzling pumpkin lantern show.  All of the pumpkins entered into our show will be lined up and lighting up the darkness in a spooky show of the best and scariest pumpkins in Stirling.  We’ll also be dooking for apples and having some other fun Halloween activities in our Polytunnel.  Entry is by donation.  Teas, coffees and home baking will also be available.

 

Nearly 150 local residents and competitors braved the wettest day of the summer to attend the third annual Braehead Flower and Horticultural Show on Sunday.   Provost Christine Simpson visited the event, which was held under the cover of the Braehead Community Garden Events Polytunnel, to present the prizes.

 

Braehead resident Jim Clark, who is a member of the Community Garden, was the overall winner with 58 points from entries spread across multiple categories.

Over 250 entries were received across multiple categories, including best home baking, best onions, best photograph, best floral display and more.

Other winners on the day included Alastair Kerr for most points in the fruit section and Alasdair Forsyth successfully defended his “hottest chili” growing title for the second year.  Jennifer MacKay won the homemade section, while Lucy Brown was the winner in the children’s’ section.

Garden Manager Aileen Hall said,

“It was great to see so many people brave the weather to visit and appreciate all the hard work from growers around Stirling.  We’re doing our bit here at Braehead to reintroduce simple gardening skills and give people the confidence to try growing their own food and then have fun sharing and showing what they’ve produced.  

The Braehead Community Garden Beekeepers took first place in the honey category, with a jar of the first ever honey produced from the small apiary on the Broom Road site.

Visitors to the garden were also able to buy honey, along with eggs from the garden’s flock of hens and vegetables from educational “kitchen garden”.

The Community Garden’s next public event will be the annual Pumpkin Festival in October.  For more information, or to arrange a visit or find out more about membership, log onto www.braehead.org

Braehead Community Garden has put a call out for growers and gardeners all over Stirling to compete in the third annual Horticulture and Flower Show on Sunday 26^th August.

The event is open to the public – both to visit or to enter one of the many categories. Click here to download an event schedule.

There are 100 categories to enter, spread across seven sections:  Vegetables, Flowers, Fruit, Homemade and Childrens’, photography and chilies.  The produce must be home grown, home cooked or home made.

Returning this year will be the “hottest chilli pepper” category.   Last year one of the hottest chilies on the planet, the Carolina Reaper, was cultivated in the garden’s polytunnels.  This particular chili is hotter than the pepper spray used by police all over the world.

Categories in the popular “photography section” this year include “A Stirling Scene” and “Patterns in Nature”.

Garden Manager Aileen Hall says,

“If you’ve got a cabbage that you’re particularly proud of, or indeed think your scones are better than anybody else’s, we want to see you enter our show on 26^th August.  This event captured the local imagination and competitive spirit last year and was great fun.   This is a fantastic opportunity for everybody to come together and show the results of their summer labours in gardens all over Stirling.”

Braehead’s Flower and Plant Show Organiser Rosa Huczynska says,

“Last year’s show was a big hit with both members and the public and this year’s event will be bigger and better.  This year we’ve a whopping 100 categories across seven sections, ranging from photography to cakes.  I grew up in Buchlyvie and regularly entered the Kippen Flower Show as a child;  it’s great to see the spirit of these village shows growing in Braehead.  If you enjoy either gardening, baking, crafts or photography, there’s a category for you at the Braehead Horticulture and Flower Show.”

Entries will be accepted on Sunday 26th August in the morning from 8.30am until 10am, judging takes place until 1.30pm, with the show open to the public from 1.30pm until 4pm.  Provost Christine Simpson will present the prizes to the winners at 3pm.