Seedy Sunday is coming around again, and as it’s usually the first Sunday in February, it often coincides with our planned workday. This Sunday February 1st, we’re proposing a Seedy Sunday-Greenway sandwich: we have a work session planned 11am to 1pm (meet by the raised beds, turn right from the Boston Street entrance). So if you want to swap seeds early, Seedy Sunday opens 10am in the nearby Open Market. Then just walk up towards the station to join us. We’ll finish early so people can go back to Seedy Sunday, and lunch. They usually have some great lunch options and it’s always a lovely atmosphere for everyone involved in growing and community gardening.
So far it’s been a pretty miserable start to the year – very rainy, very stormy and also cold. But we’re starting to see a few fine clear days, and today I spotted these lovely snowdrops beside the path on the Greenway.
The petasitesfragrans which have now colonised the New England embankment were actually fragrant after winter sunshine yesterday and today.
We’ll hope for dry sunny weather on our next workday: SUNDAY 16th February 10.30 to 1.30. Do join us if you can for litter-picking, cutting back shrubbery and clearing paths and steps. And of course having a good old natter in a friendly outdoor environment.
We delayed our first session of 2025 because of cold weather with snow and ice. Today it was just cold weather … overcast, grey and not very pleasant. But no rain or wind. We had a good friendly session: the usual litter-picking but also cutting back the shrubbery over growing the path and scything the brambles and other thugs which might stifle the wild flowers later in.
The Greenway looks a little bleak at this time of year but at least we’ve cut back the thorny vegetation threatening to swamp the path and the more delicate denizens of the Greenway.
Another year begins, and the weather has been relentlessly dull, dreary and dark. OK, we’ve just had a sudden drop in temperatures and a bit of sun and brightness, but on the first Sunday of this January, the temperatures are due to rise again and we’re back to dull and drizzly: not great weather for our first workday of the year, so we’ve postponed until Sunday 12 January 10.30 to 1.30.
There are quite a few jobs to be done: litter picking as always, but also continuing to cut back overgrown shrubs and clearing debris and brambles to encourage a wider range of wildflowers to grow. Oh yes, and clearing the New England steps – my favourite job. Unfortunately, our broom broke at the last session; the handle was completely rotted with the damp. Time to get a new plastic broom – a good omen for the new year: new brooms sweep clean. Do come and join us if you can …
As we come to the end of the year, a brief update on what we’ve been doing in 2024. Yes, we’re still meeting on the first Sunday of the month, weather permitting, to cut back shrubs, to clear paths and to do a good litter pick.
A clear but muddy path
However, on several occasions this year, the weather has not permitted! High winds and heavy rain have meant we’ve had to cancel sessions.
We started 2024 with discussions on trying to get more attractive planting on the Isetta strip: a ‘bee bank’? Some sustainable shrubs and perennials? It’s such a difficult area, with quite a bit of shade and the ‘wrong kind’ of soil for trying to get a wildflower ‘meadow’ going.
We’ve finished the year – we had our last session on Sunday – reviving the idea of trying to identify a pedestrian and wildlife corridor/walkway from Brighton Greenway to the Downs.
In between times, we had an optimistic go in August at street art on the low arches near the railway bridge. That ended with our beautiful sunflower being tagged within days … very sad and rather demotivating. Hey ho!
The Greenway looked a bit wet and sodden on Sunday but we cleared the New England steps and scythed back the overgrowth opposite the benches. Looking forward to 2025! All the very best for the festive season!
It’s been a horrible wet autumn and winter, and like everywhere else in Brighton, the Greenway is water-logged and the soil is very soggy indeed.
Bad weather put paid to our session in December but fingers crossed, our first session in 2024 – January 14th 10.30-1.30 – will be in dry conditions. So far the weather forecast is for overcast skies but no rain.
Let’s hope, looking forward to the 2024 growing season, that things don’t continue to be overly wet or get too dry in the spring.
The edible growing in the raised beds was very successful last year. We’ve planted some ‘green manure’ to replenish fertility in the beds and most of the herbs planted last year have survived. We continue to try to keep Brighton Greenway (relatively) free of litter and to clear leaves from the New England entrance and keep the nettles and buddleia from invading the pathway.
We’ve talked again about exploring possibilities for extending Brighton Greenway northwards towards Preston Park – that was an idea back when the Greenway was planned and planted in 2008-9. We’ll have to see where it leads …
Do join us if you can – out in the open but still in the centre, and with a friendly group of people!
Refreshing is not a word that comes to mind in an English February. But that’s what we’re doing at the moment in Friends of Brighton Greenway. We held our Annual General Meeting last week and appointed some new people to our Committee, which is … refreshing. You can see minutes of the meeting and our annual report.
Though Brighton Greenway is looking rather bedraggled at the moment, we’re still active in the background. We’re looking at possibilities for replanting what we call the ‘Isetta Strip’, which runs alongside the footpath between Stroudley Road and Boston Street. We’ve also just set up some interesting felt grow bags for edible growing in our newest raised bed. No seeds planted yet, though, as the temperatures have suddenly dropped to around 1-2C again – refreshing?
We hope to start our Sunday morning workdays again soon, so watch this space and get in touch if you’d like to come and join us: fobrightongreenway@outlook.com
It’s been raining a lot in Brighton – so much so that we’ve had to cancel several workdays. We need the rain after the long hot summer but Brighton Greenway is now looking rather sodden.
However, last Sunday 13th November, a few of us did manage a good three hours’ work in mild and sunny Autumn weather. The Greenway looked at its best with the ochres, golds and reds of the Glory Vine (Vitis coignetiae).
We cleared litter, cut back overgrowth on the path and cleared the dead plants from the vegetable raised beds. Chard, borage and nasturtium have been left to grow happily. We’ve also planted some Fava bean seeds to act as a green manure. When they (fingers crossed) come up in the spring, we’ll just dig them into the soil and they should rot down, fertilising the soil for the next round of vegetables. We also sowed a few yellow rattle seeds. These are great for doing the opposite to the beans – depleting nutrients in the soil so that the thugs (nettles, thistles and dock) don’t take over and swamp wild flowers growing underneath. We’ll see what happens …
We also managed to clean the graffiti from our orientation signs, though a lot remains on the pillars, lamp-posts and walls.
Our next workday is planned for SUNDAY 4th December 10am to 1pm – weather permitting!
The cleared path – it’s still a bit waterloggedThe raised beds with an enthusiastic nasturtiumThe strange things we find on our litter-pick
Just two hours in the hot sun, a rewarding time nonetheless. The small group of us picked litter with our long-handled grabbing tools. Useful when reaching into bramble or lifting out syringes, often complete with needle. Luckily we had a trained person who had her sharps box for safe storage of these dangerous items – Lynsey, one of the Council Rangers. Drug-taking is one of the unintended consequences of creating a quiet, green space complete with secluded corners. Five or six sacks of bottles, cans and plastic food packaging collected, and one of the city’s rental cycles found at the north end, vandalised and abandoned (later reported to one of the schemes mechanics working one a bike on the Lewes Rd).
It was probably ridden here from one of the road access points further south, since it could not have been pushed up the cycle rolling track beside the steps, as it is unusable since a new handrail was placed between the steps and the rolling surface!!
A good example of left hand being unaware of plans of the right hand!
Tagging is an ongoing issue (all over the city, not just here). Not just the wall, but concrete seats and the litter bin attracts this sort of expensive vandalism.
All along the east side there are brick columns which once supported a factory floor spanning the whole Greenway – part of the long-gone locomotive building and maintenance workshops. Some columns support lots of wildlife-valuable ivy,
others display arty exaggerated railway worker’s equipment. One of our number spent time clearing the bramble and nettles away from the base of one of these latter columns to better display the art – but will it encourage more tagging? Wait and see.
Shovel on column – even the up-lighter set in the ground beneath was still working.
In the early days of the Greenway it was decided to install steel wires on the west side area of blind brick arches, then plant a non-native vigorous climber to go up them. Vandals soon removed the wires, and now the vine swamps native hawthorn and other shrubs.
Vitis coignetiae – the crimson glory vine, busy supressing the natives!
Between Boston Street and Stroudley Road the path runs beside a very overgrown planting bed. Very overgrown because a rich topsoil was deposited in the constructed concrete trough – it should have been nutrient-poor medium to encourage grassland wildflowers to dominate. We hope that chalk will be made available to replace or at least cover this soil, meanwhile all we can do is cut back the rampant nettles when they start to lean across the footway. We had planned to dig out the nettles and stuff, but digging has been forbidden because there may be services in the soil. Strange that was not an issue when the Council rotovated the ground or when we had permission to plant a series of shrub hedges at intervals. Perhaps all will become clear in due course.
To end on a more positive note – on the more formal southern part of the Greenway there are some rock filled gabions which offer habitat for lizards, slowworms and many insect species. I cannot say whether they are well used, but they have potential. With a warming climate larger European lizards may find their way here – rather like the ones to be seen in Ventnor, Isle of Wight. Gabions of rock are well established homes for these big and beautiful beasts there.
Rock-filled steel wire baskets (gabions) in the south section of the Greenway.
The Brighton Greenway wildflower ‘meadow’ in May 2022
We’ve stuttered along a bit these last few months with several cancelled workdays. Friends of Brighton Greenway is still active, we’re just working out how to organise ourselves best to promote and develop this sometimes unloved, but valuable, green space right in the centre of urban Brighton.
Meanwhile, the wildflowers on the Greenway have come up, and the vegetables, herbs and edible flowers in the raised beds are doing well. Thanks to support from our St Peter’s-North Laine Councillors, Pete West and Sue Shanks, we’ve been able to add another raised bed to our edible growing area. Thanks too to the Wood Store who constructed the bed and helped install it.
If you’re interested in getting involved with Friends of Brighton Greenway, do email us at fobrightongreenway@outlook.com. We’ll be posting details in due course of meetings and workdays.
Our new raised bed being installed with help from The Woodstore
Friends of Brighton Greenway 