Stories From the garden
Seeds, new beginnings and ancient ways
What better way to start our new season of Family Saturday, than celebrating seeds! The start of life for so many plants…
The Village, the storm and the award
Growing older brings new challenges but also new gifts. It has been 20 years since the first tutoring afternoons with the local village’s pupils; since the job at the zoo in Devon, with tarantulas and Madagascar hissing cockroaches. From Italian working-class kitchens to Siberian tigers’ enclosures, from Icelandic sport halls to London urban gardens.
Learning new skills
My experience with GG can be summarised perfectly with an experience where I was building carpentry skills.
BUILDING SLOW
We often hear “time is money” and fear “wasting time.”
Society teaches us to race against it, but what if we worked with time instead—allowing it to shape and evolve with us?
WE’VE BUILT A BUILDING
When I started working at the Triangle site at the end of 2024 I didn’t know what to expect. I hadn’t really done anything like it before but was ready to throw myself in.
Meet the trainees: COHORT TWO
Meet our second cohort of earth build trainees! Their focus has been on all things wood, including green woodworking and the timber construction of the kitchen. They have learned on the job, while working on our sustainable natural build construction project to create our first permanent community garden, at the #TriangleSite.
My Year with Global Generation: Everyday Spaces, Extraordinary Change
The everyday often gets overlooked, doesn’t it? We walk past spaces, objects, and people without a second thought—but these small, everyday moments hold the power to create real change.
Learnings from Future Neighbourhoods
It’s a beautifully golden afternoon in late October, and I am sitting in Somers Town on a table outside the pub, admiring the seven foot sunflowers that are growing opposite the medical centre.
Unexpected Journeys
Zakariya Sharif Nur, former Global Generation’s Generator and Alumni and now creative strategist ( https://zacology.com/about_ shares the story of when he joined GG as a young person almost 20 years ago and was involved in the creation of our first KX rooftop garden
Looking back at 2024 and looking ahead at 2025
I wake to a bright crisp winter’s day. Finally … after weeks of storms ravaging the country.
As the year ends we are reminded of the magic and beauty that our gardens bring, as places to come together and celebrate, even in difficult times. This year it has been challenging not to be taken over by fear and despair, with extreme weather events being mirrored in different ways across the world, from floods to droughts; with the most recent political events; with wars destroying land and displacing entire populations; and with the constant increase in the cost of living creating ever more inequalities between those that have and those that do not.
Celebrating Personal Transformations - Moments in motherhood and career
3 months ago I made the journey back to work after 10 months on maternity leave. As we sit down to write our blogs, I feel compelled to recognise this shift in my life over the last year, how I have felt working in GG and how my new lives intertwine with work.
Building the past and dreaming of the impossible
I was 14 when I first joined the Youth leadership programmes at Global Generation. Returning to the place where my journey began feels surreal. When I first arrived at the Triangle Site, I had the same feeling I did when I first set foot in the Skip Garden:
NOTES FROM A SKETCHBOOK
I was very excited about joining the Global Generation team for my year 10 work experience placement. Throughout my childhood I have been following the progress of each temporary garden, starting with The Skip Garden at the top of Kings Cross.
Creekside Seasons
A puncture is not how I envisioned starting the day, no one ever does. They always seem to happen when you’re in a rush, people are expecting you, and the weather is particularly…challenging.
Under 5's Messy Play launches at the paper garden
I first visited the Paper Garden when it was inside the Printworks. I attended a community celebration with my two children. We had a great time making pizzas and sawing wood. I thought to myself, what a wonderful place to have so close to home.
City Girl in Nature - Paper Garden reflections
Where do I start about my experience of working with Global Generation in particular Paper Garden.
I remember the first time I was invited down to Paper Garden, Emma had got in contact as she had seen my work, the content I was sharing on YouTube around connecting with nature on our doorstep and what inspired my journey to become ‘City Girl in Nature’.
How To Till Concrete
There was once a palace made of copper, which stood on mounds of woodchip in the middle of desolate plains of concrete. Around it, hedges grew that rivalled ancient palace grounds, like the Yuanming gardens of Imperial China, that tickled the beard of the Old Green Man of the English forests.
Meet the trainees
Our first cohort of earth build trainees has completed their programme. They have learned on the job, while working on our sustainable natural build construction project to create our first permanent community garden, at the #TriangleSite.