Heartless hay theft leaves livestock food supplies short

104 bales of hay worth an estimated £600 have been stolen from the Trust’s nature reserve at Marden Meadow near Staplehurst this week.

A vigilant resident became suspicious when he noticed that the reserve gate had been left wide open for a prolonged period and immediately alerted the Trust.

The Trust’s Weald Area Warden, Matt Hayes said: ‘This callous act would have been highly visible from the Marden Road and it would have taken some considerable time to load a large truck or trailer. We now need to buy our hay to keep our livestock fed through the winter months.’

The police are dealing with the matter, but if anyone has seen any suspicious activities going on at the reserve recently, can they please call the Trust on 01622 662012 or email matt.hayes@kentwildlife.org.uk.

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Whilst we have probably addressed these points in the past; time and events move-on. So in the event that it might assist others, similarly concerned; we publish our response below – and would of course welcome comments…

We have in-fact had one other e-mail along similar lines – back at the beginning of the year, and prior to the Smiths taking-over. That was probably the only negative comment received in the two years that our website etc has been in existence. You may also have seen that our recent (albeit, very unscientific) website visitors survey, showed 21% in agreement with you – exactly the same percentage as believed we should have been more proactive!

We have no argument whatsoever with the concept of negativity and lack of support for the Congelow Trust, whose handling of the past two years events leaves a great deal to be desired, and whose longer-term management raises very serious questions. However, as far as lack of support for the new operators is concerned; we would have to disagree with you. The moment we knew that the Smiths would be involved (which was a long time before any public announcement was made), we e-mailed them, offering our support and facilities for publicising the Gardens etc to our (not insubstantial) database. Similarly; immediately following the opening, we e-mailed again, congratulating them on what had been achieved and effectively putting our own website into ‘mothballs’. We never received an acknowledgement or response to either of those e-mails; and in response to various comments and 92% positive result from our survey, decided to continue with the website anyway.

Looking at the (latest NewsList) e-mail to which you are responding; it is hard to see the negativity and lack of support of which you speak. We agree that we have been critical of the ‘official’ Gardens website; and cannot see any reason not to be – it having been effectively static and out of date for the past month. This has of course been rectified over this past weekend, as you will see reflected in our other blog posts - which say how much better it is, albeit mentioning a technical error, which we would hope will be picked-up on by the operators and rectified.

Looking again at the e-mail under reply; in the last three paragraphs we have praised the appearance of the Gardens, the efforts of the new operators, Paul and the staff’s friendliness and enthusiasm – and urged everyone to visit the Gardens. We mention what appears to be a degree of naïveté – which there certainly is – and a change of emphasis with the Gardens becoming secondary to the café and farm shop. These are truths; which one would hope would be treated as constructive criticism.

The naïveté will hopefully be replaced by experience. However, the change of emphasis and the dropping of ‘Organic’ from the Gardens’ name, is an action we certainly consider to be in-error; which is a viewpoint we will not move from. It is that word in the title and that ethos that makes Yalding stand-out from the very many other gardens that people visit. Analysis of our website logs shows that 90% of the search engine referrals we receive, where Yalding and Gardens are mentioned in the query, include the word ‘Organic’.

We have also of course criticised the lack of promotion of the Gardens – and that is on the basis of what we see as promotion of a nationally (and indeed internationally) known ‘attraction’ (sorry – but that is what it has to be, to generate revenue) – which increasingly, is by means of the Internet/Social Media, etc, where again (until this past weekend) the ‘official’ efforts have been minimal.

Conversely, our own website – with up to 1,000 visitors a month – has become the place that people go to find out about the Gardens; with information on the history, more than 500 photos, location details, and now even a plan of the Gardens. All of which has taken a considerable time (and a fair amount of money) to create and promote – and which would not normally be the actions of those who were unsupportive.

On looking at our website, you may also see that over the weekend we published information on the Gardens requiring volunteers; the ‘local residents’ discounts, and the ‘summer activities’ – all of which are surely positive, not negative? This information though has to be ‘collected’ by us from the Internet, and is as a consequence sporadic. We would be absolutely delighted to publish fuller details – but we can only do that, if people tell us!

From the feedback we get; we are aware that the work we do, provides publicity and consequently visitors for the Gardens – and indeed kept interest alive, during the bleaker periods. However, for the Gardens to survive they must generate visitors and income and to do that, they must operate as a viable business. That business has to attract ‘customers’ – which it can only do, if the ‘product’ is correct. Part of getting that product correct, is listening-to and acting upon criticism. If there is a problem and criticism is ‘stifled’, for whatever reason, the problem does not go away – but the customers do. That is why ‘constructive criticism’/‘feedback’ is so important – and the main reason why we will continue to criticise – where it seems there is good reason to do so. Our support for the Gardens however remains wholehearted, as always.

The KM also states that there is a complete programme of summer activities, especially with children in mind. Starting on Monday, July 26 with a series of bug hunts in the gardens.

Full article here.

Although clearly still a bit ‘under development’; the site carries much of the text of the current garden leaflet, and provides links to the ‘Hedgeblog’ – albeit with somewhat eccentric navigation.

We picked-up a ‘Volunteering Aplication Form’ from the Gardens the other day – and it can be downloaded here, if required.

Just a note to let you know about the updates to our ‘unofficial’ website at yaldingorganicgardens.info, since the Garden’s re-opening a month ago.

Most significantly; we have re-arranged and expanded the Gallery page (here), which now has a selection of photos taken over the past six years – showing the Gardens under the care of the three different ‘operators’.

We have also published our own sketch plan of the Gardens (available for download here) to fill an obvious gap in the information available.

As to any ‘official’ news from the Gardens; this is still very thin on the ground – virtually non-existent. As far as we are aware; there is no program of events published anywhere and the official ‘Yalding Gardens’ website – having been publicising the opening day as a future event until yesterday – currently only shows the ‘hedgeblog’ – last updated on the 18th June! We continue to have absolutely no contact with the ‘operators’ – our last email (congratulating them on the opening) going unanswered. We will however publish whatever event information we learn-of.

The Gardens themselves continue to look spectacular – with the new tenants clearly working hard to build on HDRA’s original magnificent demonstration gardens and all the effort and investment that has gone before. Our own five visits over the past month have (with one exception) generally found few visitors in the Gardens themselves (as opposed to the café) but we can only hope that the summer holidays bring higher numbers. Certainly, the friendliness and enthusiasm of Paul Smith and his staff deserve reward by success; even if the café and farm shop offerings, leave a fair amount to be desired.

The new operators clearly have a ‘green ethos’ and are certainly doing many of the ‘right things’. One can’t however escape the feeling that there is a degree of naïveté showing through – and certainly a lack of marketing and promotion. But then; there is perhaps also a change of emphasis – rightly or wrongly – with the Gardens probably being considered as secondary to the shop and café operations. As always “time will tell”!

In any event; do please visit the Gardens if and when you can. They need and deserve your support; and if you could also spare the time to drop us an email with your impressions; we would be very pleased to publish them on the website.