Harvest Fair 2025 at Glenfinart Walled Garden

Glenfinart Walled Garden

Now in its eleventh year, Ardentinny Community Trust’s Harvest Fair at Glenfinart Walled Garden continues to draw the crowds for an afternoon of excellent entertainment and a great selection of activities. The 2025 event, held last Sunday, was well attended and, for once, bathed in autumn sunshine. 

With its  beautiful garden backdrop, the event had a lot to offer. Visitors were welcomed with a refreshing glass of fresh apple juice from the garden’s orchard and, as usual, food was in plentiful supply with scrumptious curries and soups created from the garden’s vegetables; burgers; and Ardentinny’s, now famous, mouth watering home baking.  

The busy market stalls offered handmade crafts; jams; honey; books; Tombola; and the ever popular coconut shy.  

Live musical entertainment was provided by the ageless Elderly Brothers, with special guest singers entertaining the crowd throughout the afternoon. 

Huge thanks go to everyone who helped make the day a great success. The visitors dug deep in their pockets, with some £2,600+ being raised!

Run totally by volunteers, Glenfinart Walled Garden continues to provide both Ardentinny and the wider Cowal area with a beautiful, peaceful community space. This year, new trustees step up to Ardentinny Community Trust, continuing the excellent work of the previous trustees, and with ambitious plans for additional village projects , under the Community Trust umbrella. At the recent AGM, new trustee Bill Tierney, thanked the previous trustees for the many hundreds of hours they had put in over the past years in maintaining and developing the walled garden. 

Glenfinart Walled Garden volunteer days continue on a Wednesday and Thursday from 11am – 2.30pm. The Trust is always looking for new volunteers, so if you have a few hours to spare, why not come along and have an enjoyable day in the garden. You can also contact the Trust via the Glenfinart Walled Garden Facebook page or by email at info@glenfinartgarden.org.

Easter Fun Day 2025 @ Glenfinart Walled Garden

Easter Fun Day

Last weekend, Ardentinny’s Easter Fun Day at Glenfinart Walled Garden pulled in a big crowd. The annual event featured the usual Easter egg hunt (with eggcellent prizes!), egg and spoon races, sack races and the Easter Bonnet contest, all set against the backdrop of blooming spring flowers in the community garden.

With the sun shining, there were plenty of activities for the whole family, including the coconut shy; handicraft, preserves and toy stalls; and the busy burger bar and tea cabin.

The event also marked the beginning of the garden’s seasonal public opening times, i.e., Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10.30 to 14.30, plus other times by appointment.

For more information or to schedule a visit to the garden, send an email to sec@glenfinartgarden.org. You can also follow Ardentinny Community Trust on Facebook, or visit www.glenfinartgarden.org.

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Ardentinny celebrates Autumn’s arrival at Harvest Fair

Despite the promise of ‘sunny intervals’ last Sunday, the sun unfortunately failed to materialise at Glenfinart Walled Garden’s Harvest Fair. However, the dry weather still brought out the crowds to Ardentinny’s community garden.

Visitors were welcomed with a refreshing glass of fresh apple juice from the garden’s orchard, which was still heaving from this years abundant crop. The stalls were as usual very busy, with the tombola, preserves and bottle stalls being particularly popular!

To tempt the palate, the garden’s volunteers always make a great effort to satisfy the hungry hoards, this year offering a particularly tasty (and garden-grown) vegetable curry, veggie soup, burgers and hot dogs as well as a wide assortment of home-baked cakes served in the tea cabin.

As usual, the ever youthful Elderly Brothers, along with their guest performers provided the excellent entertainment with an eclectic selection of music from their rendition of The Black Velvet Band to Bob Dylan favourites.

The Ardentinny Community Trust garden relies 100% on volunteers, and is always on the lookout for more people who can devote a few hours each week to caring for this delightful community garden. If you’re interested, get in touch with the secretary at sec@glenfinartgarden.org.

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Harvest Fair this Sunday!

Harvest Fair, Glenfinart Walled Garden Ardentinny this Sunday 22 Sept 12- 4pm.

Enjoy garden tastes, apple juice, food stalls, home baking, fruit preserves, coconut shy, bottle stall, burgers & garden produce and more.

Fun for all the family plus live music from The Elderly Brothers. Free entry! Local bus from Dunoon Pier. Wet weather cover provided. Don’t miss it!

 

Monarch of Glenfinart pulls in the crowds

Monarch of Glenfinart

Glenfinart Walled Garden’s Easter Fun Day marked a sunny and successful start to the 2024 season at Ardentinny’s community garden. The good weather may have been a contributing factor in attracting large numbers to the event and, once there, fun activities and attractions were in abundance.

As the gates opened at 12 noon, excited youngsters poured in to quickly search for the hidden eggs which would then be exchanged for a chocolate egg in the Easter Egg Hunt. This was followed by the Easter Bonnet competition and great excitement in the Egg and Spoon and sack races. As ever, the stalls were busy and huge queues formed for the burgers and hotdogs.

A new introduction this year was the mural created by artist Kathy Bruce of Dunoon MOCA. The ‘Monarch of Glenfinart’, as it has been affectionately named, was very popular with families having their photos taken with the garden wildlife! Look out for them on social media!

Glenfinart Walled Garden is run entirely by volunteers and aims to provide a space for people to connect with nature and learn about gardening, while also promoting the use of local produce. The success of the Easter Fun Day is a testament to the hard work and dedication of the Ardentinny Community Trust volunteers who have transformed this once neglected garden into a thriving community hub.

For more information on volunteering at the garden, visit the group’s Facebook page or www.glenfinartgarden.org.

Click on any photo to enlarge.