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Wassail, Wassail, all over the town…! The tradition of singing to bless your fruit trees and ensure a good crop goes back hundreds of years.

Thanks to everyone who joined in our Wassail. We blessed the fruit trees in Fen Meadow with cider and breadcrumbs whilst singing wassailing songs.

Thanks to all the musicians, Malcolm, Dan, Chris, Isla and especially Martin who accompanied us. Then we warmed up with more singing in the Cherry Tree.

We have finished our fruit picking for 2024! We love this annual activity as it’s a WIN, WIN, WIN! Fruit doesn’t go to waste, it gives us a fun day out picking and provides free healthy food for all those who receive it.

We’d like to thank everyone who’s donated fruit for us to pick this year, especially High House Fruit Farm, and the amazing people who run the New Horizons and St Andrews Church lunch clubs, foodbanks and feeding the homeless, who process and use it; Helping Hands Suffolk, Salvation Army Woodbridge, FIND.

And thank you to our brilliant picking volunteers!

We have now started our annual fruit tree maintenance. This involves weeding and mulching the trees we’ve been planting since 2013. If you’d like to help, please contact us – we can let you know what to do. Gloves needed.

Our fifth River Clean in collaboration with 5th Woodbridge Sea Scouts resulted in plastic crates, a pillow, a traffic cone, a couple of broken dinghies and other river debris. Less pontoon polystyrene and fishing equipment was collected.

A 100m riverbank stretch up near Wilford Bridge was surveyed and submitted to Marine Conservation Society.

The Town Crier advertised the event and read the Declaration of the Rights of the River.

Deben Yacht Club provided free tea and cake for the litter pickers.

Thank you to all who attended and helped out.

‘When we support local farmers, we’re not just buying food; we’re investing in our community’s future’ – Joel Salatin, US farmer, lecturer & author

Transition Woodbridge welcomes some of our area’s finest food and drink producers to our Harvest Fair on Saturday 14th September, 10am-4pm at Woodbridge Community Hall. Guests in the Main Hall include Hullabaloo Bakery, High House Fruit Farm, Oak Tree Community Farm, Woodbridge Tide Mill, Oakdene Honey, Anglian Organics, Sandlings Saffron, Woodbridge Country Market and Truly Unique Pasta. This is a wonderful opportunity to buy genuinely local produce, support Suffolk businesses and meet the people behind the products. Come and find out about heritage apple varieties, bee keeping, community supported agriculture, and much more!

Meanwhile, the Hall Annexe hosts an exciting programme of talks and short films specifically aimed at teenagers and young adults. Local student and environmental activist James presents Our Beautiful Wild, an inspiring film about young people and the natural world. We’ll also be hearing from members of Suffolk Young Farmers, Deben Estuary Partnership, Suffolk Farming & Wildlife Advisory Group, and Woodbridge Youth Council.

Back in the Main Hall, you’ll find delicious refreshments courtesy of Woodbridge Country Market, bird walks to the river with Suffolk Bird Group (at 10.30am and 1.30pm), and children’s activities including our brand new Eco-Woodbridge board game – all gently soundtracked by Jan Pulsford’s ambient music.

The event is free, accessible and open to all. We are grateful to Woodbridge Town Council and Suffolk & Essex Coast & Heaths National Landscape for supporting this event.

If you or someone you know has a fruit tree with excess fruit, please get in touch!

Transition Woodbridge can come and harvest the fruit so it doesn’t go to waste. We deliver it to lunch clubs and other charities working with food banks and homeless people in Ipswich. Last year St Andrews Church Melton lunch club was saved the cost of desserts for the lunch club using some of the produce we picked. So a win, win situation!

And if you would like to help with picking, please get in touch too!

Our 2024 Open Wild Gardens Day was a huge success!

The weather was so kind to us and every garden, large and small, was blessed with a steady and interested stream of visitors.

A huge thank you to everyone that came and made the hard work put into the preparation of the day so worthwhile.

Thanks to all the hosts who kindly opened their fascinating gardens. It’s a brave (and exhausting!) thing to do and was much appreciated by our visitors.

Thanks too to all the wonderful volunteers behind the scenes who made and/or served the delicious array of cakes and cookies, ran the plant stall and ensured that nothing ran out anywhere! You surpassed yourselves this year!

And thanks too to Wendy and Hilary, our two organisers who have been beavering away for weeks to make the day such a success.

And last but not least, thanks to all the wildlife that showed up on cue – newts, frogs, damselflies, dragonflies, a myriad of pollinator insects, swifts and countless other birds, thus proving how valuable it is to make space for wildlife in our gardens.

Worried about the planet’s future? Don’t know what to do with those feelings? Come and share with others feeling the same way.

Transition Woodbridge is running two ‘Climate Cafe Conversations’ at Foxburrow Nature Reserve, Melton.

People increasingly need to talk about what our changing world means for them in terms of impacts at personal, family and societal level. We need to imagine it in some detail so as to be able to think about it constructively and clear-sightedly, and to explore some complex feelings and thoughts.

Come along to this free gathering – a place to speak freely about your feelings, or just listen to others.

The two events take place in the evenings on Thursday 20 June and Thursday 11 July. Find out more and book your free place.

Put the date in your diary – on Saturday 18 May, there’s an exciting opportunity to visit some of the delightful wild gardens around Woodbridge, Melton and Hasketon!

Following the success of last year’s Open Wild Gardens event, once again you can wander around a range of local gardens, get inspired to create your own wild space, and enjoy tea and cake!

The gardens on display will showcase a wide range of features from small front gardens to glorious wildflower meadows, ponds and hedgerows.

Visit the ‘Wildlife Corridors Open Day’ page to find out which gardens will be opening their gates, see them all on a map, and start planning your wonderful, wild day!

We in Woodbridge and Melton are very fortunate to have Cupboard Love to get refills and plastic free goods on our personal journeys to reduce our use of single use plastics. Cupboard Love, for those of you not familiar, is at the Woodbridge Thursday Market at the Shire Hall from 9-1pm on Thursday Mornings. Cupboard Love also visits Framlingham Market. Please do try to support this business if you can.

Poppy’s Pantry in Melton also do refills!  They’re at The Sidings, Wilford Bridge Road, down near the railway station. And Grange Farm Shop, Hasketon, do some refills too.

For those of you who live in Ipswich/Rushmere area, there’s Lucy’s Unwrapped & Refill shop on Woodbridge Road, Ipswich. The shop stocks a huge range of refillable wares and is open five days a week. There is also a small amount of parking directly outside and a bike park too.

Finally the Adnams shop in Woodbridge does refills of its Copper House Gin. As there are marketing and alcohol laws surrounding refills, the shop can only refill Adnams Copper House Gin bottles, but you’ll save £5 if you buy this way!