Growing Places, Spring 2015

Growing Places Members’ magazine, Spring 2015

• The rise and rise of Incredible Edible Wales • A Space to Grow in Sunderland • Spring clean at Hulme Garden Centre • Growing a garment from seed to seam at Cordwainers Community Garden

• Forging links across the Humber

Inside this issue have an up to date email address for your project - and of course one advantage of an online publication is that the link can be easily shared with other staff and volunteers.

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elcome to the Spring issue of Growing Places 2015.

Sadly, this will be the last printed issue of the magazine. As part of a need to reduce budgets across the UK (see ‘Message from the Board’ on page 3), we have recently had to make some difficult decsions and changing from a printed to an online edition of Growing Places is one of these.

Many of you have already opted to receive Growing Places online. Please ensure that we

Thank you for your understanding. We hope you enjoy this issue which, as always, contains a variety of features from other members and lots of useful resources and opportunities.

Please send your news to the Editor for the next editions by 8 May. And please ensure to add us to your distribution list for your own newsletters and publicity diane@farmgarden.org.uk On the cover: Making a drill at Girvan Commuinity Garden, Girvan, Scotland

Contents A message from the Board News

3 4-6

Forging links across the Humber

7

Noticeboard

7

Incredible Edible Wales

8-9

Growing a garment from 10 - 11 seed to seam in London Events and networking

13

Spring clean at Hulme Garden Centre

14

Resources

15

Funding and other opportunities

16 - 17

Member services and FCFCG contact details

18 - 19

New members

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e now have 608 members.

A warm welcome to all those that have joined recently.

Northern England • Evenwood and Ramshaw Growing Together • Greening Wingrove Community Orchard • The Cecily Douglas Memory Garden and Allotment • Bridge Community Farms • Groundwork Grow Blackpool • Incredible Edible Levenshulme • Levenshulme Community Allotment Project • Muddy Buddies • New Charter Housing • St Margaret’s Forever Garden The Midlands • George Rose Community Gardens • Grow Outside • Growing with Dudley Mind • Syston and District Volunteer Centre • The Campus Community Garden • The Mill Garden Page

South East and Eastern England • Cobholm Community Garden Association • King’s Lynn Community Allotment • Stream Community Garden South West England • Brentry Primary School • Friends of The Byes • Growing Together • Lockleaze Community Orchard • Okehampton Community Garden Association • Secret Garden Group • The Pod Dorset London • Grow Together Be Together • Gardening for Wellbeing Wales • Penmachno Community Field • Cowbridge Community Allotment • Gelli’r Onn Farm Trust • Goytre Community Garden • Marchfield Community Council • Oak Court Garden and Social Club • Shared Earth Trust

Northern Ireland • Bready Jubilee Primary School Gardening Club • National Trust Northern Ireland Scotland • 3 Hills Community Garden • Belville Community Garden • Braehead Community Garden • Community Open Gardens Shortlees • Coupar Angus Community Garden • Cumbrae Community Garden • Food Station/Fresh Start • Oxgangs Neighbourhood Centre • RBGE Edbile Gardening Project • Tweed Green Community Garden

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A message from the Board Y

our Federation has reached 35 years this year, and we are planning ahead to continue our work. However, at the start of a new financial year, the FCFCG Board has been forced to make some tough decisions. Our budgets have been steadily reduced due to the end of government grants (particularly from Westminster), and the completion of Local Food and other grants. The impact is particularly acute in England. As a result substantial savings need to come from reductions in staff hours. We are trying to minimise the impact on our members.

Please bear with us as we make these adjustments. The areas that you may notice changes are: • This is the last printed copy of Growing Places that you will receive, with information being made available online instead (please make sure we have a current email address for you).

• Our website is currently undergoing complete redevelopment to ensure that it can offer a range of useful online services, including an improved resource library, online membership processing and improved information about member groups.

• We are currently reviewing how to deliver services in England most effectively with the limited resources available.

We intend to continue with a regional presence, including information updates and networking/training events, but intensive one-to-one advice will be at a minimum unless additional project funding can be secured. This does not affect teams in Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland at present.

Looking ahead, we anticipate our future income will increasingly be from partnership projects, contracts and earned income, rather than grants. This will create opportunities for new types of support to members, with each being carefully planned to ensure we continue to focus on supporting grass roots groups across the UK. The new Growing Together partnership is one such initiative, supporting groups through specialist advice and support to be more financially sustainable, as well as campaigning to influence future policy and funding streams.

Led by FCFCG, this UK wide programme will run until Jan 2018.

Despite the financial pressures, FCFCG continues to be uniquely placed in having distinct country presences joined as part of a UK Federation which enables cross-fertilisation of ideas and knowledge sharing. We are using our links with the Community Land Advice Service, the School Farms Network, the Community Supported Agriculture Network, Growing Together and others to broker thought-leading discussions with BLF, Oxford Real Farming Conference, Forum for the Future, and several major trusts, as well as a wide range of UK partners.

Current changes also present us with an opportunity to look afresh at our services and priorities, to decide what kind of a Federation we want in 3- 5 years from now.

Consultations with our members is vital – more than 10% of members responded to our brief “aspirations” survey in autumn 2014, and a similar number were involved in discussions about potential funding bids.

Not surprisingly, the responses emphasised the importance of sustainable support for a wide range of activities, many of which are already being delivered, rather than having to ’reinvent the wheel’ to meet continually changing funding criteria. The ‘word-map’ we produced from your responses (above) has been useful elsewhere, including a preelection ‘manifesto’ which we will send to all UK party leaders.

We face both very challenging times and the potential for new opportunities. With the support of our members, we have no doubt that both the community growing movement and FCFCG will continue to evolve as an inspiring, positive, flexible and dynamic force in our communities for a long time to come.

David Drury, FCFCG Chair Jeremy Iles, FCFCG CEO Page

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Our Scotland team are celebrating 10 years!

2015 is FCFCG’s 10th anniversary of working in Scotland. When we opened our office at Gorgie City Farm, Edinburgh in 2005 we had one part time member of staff and just 17 members. Now we have nearly 80 members and a staff team of four to keep up with all of their enquiries and training needs!

To mark our 10th anniversary, Fed staff have selected their ‘Top 10’ Scottish Seeds. All are native to or naturalised in Scotland, and tried and tested to grow well in the country’s sometimes challenging conditions. We’ve got 100 packs in total, 10 of each seed

variety, available to give away to members in Scotland. If you’d like to receive a pack of one or more variety please email: roz@ farmgarden.org.uk Our anniversary coincides with the Scottish Government’s Year of Food and Drink, which will provide lots of opportunities for the team to promote community growing to a wide audience.

We hope this will also be the year that the Community Empowerment (Scotland) Bill is passed by the Scottish Parliament. We have contributed to consultation on this bill at all stages and hope that the final bill will bring benefits for all our Scottish members.

Community Supported Agriculture in Wales FCFCG has commissioned a scoping study to explore the potential for new Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) projects in Wales.

Community Supported Agriculture is a relatively new form of farming that involves a partnership between food producers and their local community, who sign up to share the risk and reward of the growing season. This type of arrangement provides some financial security to the producer, brings consumers closer to the growing process and allows them to buy fresh, local produce at a good price.

There are over 200 CSAs in the UK, but only six of these are in Wales. This is partly due to a CSA Page

Fed faces

development programme that has been operating in England for the last four years. It is hoped that the new round of European Rural Development Programme funding, available from 2015 – 2020, will provide the opportunity to establish a Wales CSA Development Programme. This study will provide a foundation for any such programme by identifying potential areas for new, CSAs in Wales.

If you have any ideas for a new CSA, know of some land that might be suitable or enthusiastic and skilled growers/farmers or people within a community who can make something happen, then please do get in contact. rupert@farmgarden.org.uk

Emma Williams is our Wales Development Manager, based in Cardiff.

“I got involved in community growing as a volunteer at Riverside Community Garden.

I benefitted so much from that experience - gaining skills, confidence, knowledge, strength and bag after bag of fresh, delicious produce that we’d grown as a group - that I wanted to help make these opportunities available to everyone.

“After a period volunteering, I started working for FCFCG as the South East Wales Development Worker between 2011 and 2014. I have now been appointed the Wales Manager with responsibility for both our Tyfu Pobl and Community Land Advisory Service Cymru programmes.

I’m relishing the challenges of this new role and working with the team to create a future programme that will help strengthen and expand community growing in Wales.

“In my spare time I grow fruit and veg, make jam and play at sculpting figures from the rich seam of clay I have running through my back garden, it can be difficult to grow on so I’m trying to make the best of it!”

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Green Flags fly in community gardens as pilot project draws to a close Two successful and wellestablished community gardens, Debdale Eco Centre and Hulme Community Garden Centre, are both celebrating their new status as holders of the Green Flag Community Award, having been active participants in a Greater Manchester pilot project run by FCGCG to promote the standard.

The ‘Green Flag Community Award project’, a partnership between FCFCG and Keep Britain Tidy, had two key aims.

Firstly to help new community gardens set up; then to provide opportunities for more established groups to share their knowledge and inspiration. A variety of groups have been involved in the pilot, from relatively established gardens such as Operation Farm and MIND’s Kitchen Garden in Tameside, to recent start-ups such as the Forever Garden and East Manchester’s Growing in the City.

This year-long project began with site visits to all participating groups to find out their needs, followed by the delivery of bespoke training opportunities which included sessions on wildflowers, the use of herbs, and probably the world’s first pub quiz on ‘Plant pests and diseases’ for some fun learning during the festive season.

Groups requested advice on how to improve community engagement and funding, as well as on practical topics such as how to get plants for free through splitting plants, taking cuttings and collecting seeds.

A bursary was offered as an opportunity for projects to visit gardens to share best practice,

Above: Sharing the learning at Hulme Garden Centre, Manchester

learn from each other and get some valuable inspiration.

community gardens poised to apply for the Community Award.

The project included Tonbridge Road Community Allotment, Old Hall Drive Primary School’s field and an Incredible Edible project with the aspiration of encouraging community groups, who may not be ‘traditional’ community gardens, to have their work recognised and rewarded by the Community Award standard.

Other successes include the support of two brand new gardens that have accessed funding to develop growing areas, the support of a variety of activities from pruning fruit trees, to open days and volunteer events, the building of an outdoor kitchen and plenty of learning about the medicinal properties of the plants we grow.

Housing Associations have also been involved and have shared some great ideas such as Stockport Home’s ‘pop-up gardens’ on the local estate, who then took residents to visit the more established, community run Muddy Buddies youth project set up by New Charter Housing.

Although the training and networking opportunities were devised specifically to benefit the project participants, the events were open to all. This meant another twenty community gardens and individuals were able to network and enjoy the sessions.

At the end of the pilot project there are a further three

We will now be assessing the outcomes of this pilot project, so that we can share the learning with the aspiration that the project could be rolled out for other areas to benefit from its success.

The Green Flag Community Award is a national award that recognises high quality green spaces in the UK that are managed by voluntary and community groups. The awards are judged by more than 700 volunteer experts who visit and assess sites against eight strict criteria. Could your project apply for an award next year? www.greenflagaward.org/awards/ community-award Page

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European training for community gardeners The UK has enjoyed a vibrant community garden movement for many years now, and now other European countries are experiencing an increased interest in gardening in the community and the many benefits it brings to those involved and to the local area.

We have partnered with staff and volunteers from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and UK in an EUfunded project called ‘Gardeniser’, to assess the training needs of community gardeners in these countries. Our aim is to develop a training package to meet those needs.

Over the last year, volunteers and staff from community gardens and support organisations in each of the five countries have been meeting and carrying out study visits to gain a deeper understanding of the realities of community gardening in each country involved, and to discuss what skills and resources are necessary to run a successful community garden.

Lobbying success for School Farms Network A lobbying campaign led by the School Farms Network and FCFCG has created a land-mark victory – with Government performing a u-turn on plans to scrap the Environmental and Land-Based Science GCSE. Government reforms meant the GCSE was due to disappear from the curriculum in 2017, putting some school farms under threat of closure.

Read more on our website. www.farmgarden.org.uk/news Page

“Many of the skills identified by the participants are the same across borders which is not surprising,” says Sara Melendro, who has been coordinating the project on behalf of FCFCG, “A big part of any project’s success is down to people’s skills, group dynamics and project management. There are nonetheless, a wide variety of models and approaches, and some countries follow a much more formal process than others.”

The information we have shared so far will help us adapt and improve the training available and create a European course (albeit with national variations) which will offer a great springboard to anyone wanting to get started in the world of community gardening.

After attending seminars in France, Italy, Germany and UK, the partners are now gathering all the contributions and feedback received from participants. The next step of the project will be to pilot the modules and materials developed throughout the project

Above: Participants on the UK study tour at the GreenHouse

in the five countries. Here in the UK, we will trial the materials by running two pilot courses in the South West.

For further information please contact Sara Meledro. sara@farmgarden.org.uk www.gardeniser.eu

Community Land Advisory Service (CLAS) - Good news!

The Community Land Advisory Service in England will operate for another year at least, giving groups and land owners technical advice and support to create new growing projects and keep existing projects going.

CLAS can offer one-to-one advice on finding land, offering land, planning permissions, financing, land use rules and regulations, help with leases, licences or other types of

occupation arrangements. CLAS also runs workshops on land use topics and the website has a wealth of information, including template leases, case studies and guidance on finding land.

CLAS also operates in Wales and Scotland. www.communitylandadvice.org. uk

Members

Forging links across the Humber In February, a group of 13 workers and volunteers from two groups in Hull travelled across the Humber to forge links with another FCFCG member project in Grimsby, Green Futures. The visit was funded through an FCFCG travel bursary.

Green Prosperity is a lottery funded project working in East Hull to encourage residents to get involved with growing food.

The project incorporates work at East Hull Community Farm and a mentoring project helping families to grow food at home.

SEARCH is a group funded to involve church and community groups in all aspects of food, from growing veg to cookery courses.

Their project is called ‘Living better for less’. SEARCH have also set out on a new venture, in partnership with Mires Beck Nursery, growing fruit trees which eventually will be given free to church and community groups in and around Hull. To date 200 fruit trees have been grafted with a projected number of 2,000 by 2016.

On the other side of the Humber, Green Futures is an established community food growing project with vegetable and herb beds, an orchard, mushroom crops, polytunnels, hot beds and a wildlife area. There is an impressive plant sales area, a well-stocked shop and a veg box system. The visitors were keen to find out more about Green Future’s progress towards their goal: to move away from grant funding towards a more sustainable model of income generation.

“We had a thoroughly enjoyable and educational day at Green

Futures,” said Adrian Fisher, Project Co-ordinator at Green Prosperity. “We were warmly welcomed and given a thorough overview of the wide range of activities taking place on site.

We were all impressed by the strong vision communicated by all those who spoke to us.

The team showed a great willingness to experiment and they were justifiably proud of their achievements.”

“We were particularly interested in the small but efficient aquaponics unit built by the staff at Green Futures. They proved that, with a little ingenuity and a lot of effort, a unit can be built with re-cycled products. The fish were carp, a cold water fish which didn’t need supplementary heating.”

The visitors enjoyed a lunch of homemade soup in the outdoor kitchen. With a clay oven as centrepiece this area is a great resource for the project.

The afternoon involved a grafting and pruning workshop facilitated by Hilary Dobson from the Northern Fruit Group. After pruning some of the orchard trees and soft fruit bushes, the remainder of the time was spent in the warmth of the class room practicing grafting techniques.

With thanks to: • The staff at Green Futures for ensuring everyone had an excellent day • FCFCG for funding and connection to Green Futures • Probe (Hull) Ltd for the use of their minibus • Hilary Dobson, Northern Fruit Group

Noticeboard Kings Seeds - get sowing with 45% off members We have negotiated special discounts for our members with Kings Seeds, the oldest independent wholesale horticultural seed merchant in the UK. For details of how to take advantage of all current offers for members, including those for Kings Seeds, please visit the members updates section of our website. http://www.farmgarden.org. uk/members-updates

Measure your harvest Have you ever wondered if your own-grown produce could feed your family? Your village?

A nation?

MYHarvest is a new project set up by researchers at University of Sheffield which aims to collect data of fruit and vegetable yields grown by allotment holders, private gardeners and community gardeners to determine the extent to which own-grown food contributes to UK food security and sustainability today. To participate you only need to share the weight of your harvests and the area you used to grow each of your crops.

To find out more visit: https://sites.google.com/a/ sheffield.ac.uk/myharvest/ home Page

Members

The rise and rise of Incredible Edible Wales I

f you eat you’re in. The mantra for the Incredible Edible movement which began in the quiet West Yorkshire town of Todmorden, is a simple but effective one - and the movement is a growing one, in every sense of the word. Since organsing a study tour to the Yorkshire town in 2013, for community growers from Wales looking for inspiration, the FCFCG Wales team have been following the movement’s development in the country with interest.

Todmorden’s edible transformation began when green fingered locals developed a variety of growing spaces throughout the town. Apple trees can now be seen on the platform of Todmorden’s train station, squashes can be found in the police station’s courtyard and if you’re feeling out of sorts you can make yourself herbal tea, by visiting the apothecary garden outside the Medical Centre.

The town has moved on from its humble guerrilla gardening origins, with co-ordinators now grafting trees and growing food to sell through the Walsden Project. An offshoot from Incredible Edible located one train stop away, the 2 acre site has polytunnels raised beds and poultry. There is also an aquaponics project developed in partnership with the local high school.

Since its inception thousands of people have been inspired by Todmorden’s example to grow food in public spaces in their towns and villages, where locals are essentially reconnecting with food by foraging for it. Incredible Edible now has 60 members in the UK all forming part of an extensive network of community growers. Examples include: • The Incredible Edible group in Hoylake who’ve combined a mixture of guerrilla gardening, three orchards in local parks, planters outside shops, two church yards, use of garden arrangements not to mention working with Merseyrail.

• Incredible Edible Wakefield have adopted a dual approach by offering volunteers growing patches in return for their labour on communal growing plots.

• Incredible Edible Wilmslow are working extensively with local business, schools and the town council to get their town growing.

And now the movement is spreading further and further afield.

Machynlleth in Mid Wales is no stranger to community growing with The Centre for Alternative Technology located on its outskirts, the famous Wednesday Farmers’ Market and long standing community growing initiatives including Gerddi Bro Dyfi. Edible Mach - Dyfi Land Share started in 2012.

To date two growing spaces have been developed with volunteers from the local community. The

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large planter located outside the train station is growing a variety of weird and wonderful plants including quinoa. The growing space in front of the council owned ‘Y Plas’ building boasts a representation of the iconic Machynlleth clock made from woven willow, as well as a variety of vegetables including courgettes and beans.

The main coordinators, Katie Hastings and Grainne Murphy have had a fantastic response from the local community, with lots of people eager to get their hands dirty and take on responsibilities. They’ve also noticed people not only harvesting crops but planting new ones too.

A bit further north and Bwyd Bendigedig in the walled castle town of Conwy are also growing food in unexpected places.

This group is a sideshoot of the incredibly successful Feast/ Gwledd Conwy which sees thousands of visitors come to the town over one weekend in October. Last year feasters found food for free growing in the National Trust’s Tollhouse Garden just outside the medieval castle – as well as in beautiful handmade planters around the town square. Conwy is also home to a community orchard outside the castle walls, which is believed to date back to medieval times, and a stunning walled garden allotment site by the sea.

The name Bwyd Bendigedig – which literally means Fabulous Food – was coined during the FCFCG trip to Todmorden in 2013. Sarah Collick, FCFCG Development Worker said: “It’s

Members

amazing how inspirational a visit to Todmorden can be. I was particularly inspired and humbled

by The Walsden Project, the training farm outside town. This is exactly the kind of wet, acidic, reedy land I would be tempted to tell a group was unsuitable for growing – and believe me we have plenty of it in Wales. But with vision, passion and enormous amounts of hard work they’ve transformed it into a vibrant healthy growing space.There are duck ponds channelling water and building fertility, hugelkultur beds providing raised growing space and an inspired water harvesting system, with growing areas built on top of black tanks providing irrigation as well as heat storage in their polytunnels. Well worth a visit after you’ve toured the sites in town.”

In North East Wales, another ‘Incredible’ group is making great progress in Wrexham. They’ve worked with the council to access unused land in public places and also with the environment group at Glyndwr University – who have planted over a hundred fruit trees on their campus. The beautiful sites on Mount Street and Medeira Hill in town have been planted up with lots of free

food – in compost provided for free by the council. Some of the plants have also been provided by the Incredible Edible Gift Economy Eco Farm in Llanfihangel Glyn Myfyr, where a wide range of forest garden and permaculture plants are propagated and given away to be planted far and wide.

Katie Saxby from the Wrexham project said: “We were inspried by how Incredible Edible Todmorden have taken over bits of unused land to grow food and how their project has captured the public imagination. We feel food should be accessible to everyone. Not everyone has the space or skills to grow their own food and we’re at a time when people need good food more than ever. Foodbanks are giving out canned and dried foods but people also need fresh food. A lot of the time, fresh food can be the dearest. This is free.”

We’d love for people to get involved in other parts of the county or in Flintshire or Cheshire.

All they need to do is keep their eyes open for any land that’s going to waste, whether they are bits of scrap land behind a building or abandoned fields. Then they can get in touch with us or contact the Community Advisory Land

Service, who can help you find out if it’s available.”

For more information about the Incredible Edible movement in Wales or to contact someone who can help you mobilise your group please get in touch with FCFCG: We can also provide contact details for any of the projects mentioned. wales@farmgarden.org.uk The Incredible Edible network is an umbrella group to support and inspire groups across the UK who believe that providing public access to healthy, local food can enrich their communities. http://incredibleediblenetwork.org. uk ‘Measuring Your Social Impact: Community Food Projects in Action’ A new report from the RSA which shares insights on what makes community food projects successful, outlining lessons that can be drawn from Incredible Edible Todmordon by others trying to organise movements for social change. www.thersa.org/discover/ publications-and-articles/reports/ incredible-edible-report Page

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Growing a London garment from see C

ordwainers Community Garden has been created on land owned by the London College of Fashion in Hackney. It is maintained and run by a group of volunteers ranging in age from about 20 to 70. Kate Poland, one of the volunteer gardeners, describes how the garden came about and the exciting and unusual project the group have been involved in - to grow a garment from start to finish.

“In early 2011 we started to transform an area that was disused – or abused by dogwalkers, flashers and drunks – and covered in grass and brambles.

The rear of the site has been left as a wild space, where we have built a pond (and have several frogs who keep down the slugs and snails) and where our beehive lives. The remainder of the site now includes seventeen raised beds used as allotments by local people and students at the college, a mixed border of wildlife-friendly plants, fruit bushes and trees. As the garden is in the grounds of a fashion college, we have also created a bed specifically for growing natural dyes and we have been experimented with growing flax.

“We didn’t really think it through before embarking on a project to grow a piece of clothing entirely in London. If we had realised quite how much work would be involved, we might not have started! But we liked the idea of the threads that bind us together in the city. We wanted to show, through a piece of material, that individually we can come together to make something that we can’t do on our own.

“Until the introduction of cotton and the industrial revolution, Page 10

linen production was widespread in Britain and Ireland. Indeed, it was the first textile crop grown by humans – 10,000 or so years ago. Its peak here was probably in the 17th and 18th centuries.

People would have grown it for their own needs and it was also raised and processed on a large scale. But it takes a lot of work – and expertise. All those centuries of flax production being commonplace and domestic made everyone an expert – or at least aware of the plant and its uses.

No longer. We had to start from the beginning. We had to learn about the plant’s many properties and provide ideal growing conditions. There were so many questions to consider: To dew or water ret? What’s the best way of heckling? Do we need a distaff for spinning? What is a distaff???

“We made mistakes and wasted a lot of time - and flax - getting it wrong, but we had some great times. One memorable day was spent sowing a patch of flax next to the River Lea in Hackney.

On a sunny morning we met river dwellers and land lubbers who spoke to each other about common concerns. We talked over cups of tea to small children, dog walkers, curious passers-by and the odd loiterer. Already the flax was bringing us together.

“We held a series of school workshops which were full of excitement and energy – as well as learning. With the assistance of the enthusiastic local school gardener, Casie Liversidge, we worked with five Hackney and Tower Hamlets primary schools.

The children rippled, retted, broke, scutched, heckled and even spun the flax. If nothing else, they learned that thread comes from plants and takes a lot of effort.

They fitted flax production into their lessons – from science to the Iron Age. Cassie said: “It was a fantastic ‘living history’ lesson for the pupils and they have loved to be involved in it”.

“The project brought a huge number of (sometimes surprising) people together – children in London, Hebrew Bible publishers in Jerusalem, a weaver in Crete, permaculturists, fashion students, knitters and weavers. With the help of the Guild of Spinners, Weavers and Dyers and Twitter, we found two spinners (Christine Rowe and Aaron Fletcher) who were willing to learn about the demands of turning hanks of hairlike fibre into thread.

“Throughout the project we were tugged back into the past and our fairy tale memories, from the ancient mix of the boredom and sociability of harvesting, to gazing at the huge pile of flax straw and wishing Rumpelstiltskin was nearby. There was a fairy tale quality to our own spinning.

It didn’t matter how much we processed, our pile of thread never seemed to grow any bigger.

“Eventually we handed our thread (about 350g) over to knitters at the London College of Fashion. They made a top designed to bring out the great variability of the yarn made by so many people. But, as I said earlier, it wasn’t really about the final product; it was about the threads that bind us. This year’s slightly less ambitious project is to grow string!”

If you’d like to find out more please contact: kate@cordwainersgrow.org.uk http://cordwainersgarden.org

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d to seam

Above: Preparing to sow at Gascoyne Estate, Hackney

Group visitor days at Arkwright Meadows

Above: Harvesting flax at Newham City Farm

Showing visitors around your site is a great way of introducing more people to growing but can take up time and resources. Arkwright Meadows Community Garden in Nottingham has initiated a programme of Group Visitor Days for 2015, with a small charge for participants.

Clare Selwood, Community Garden Development Worker, said: “This means we can cover staff costs – it’s the only way we can afford to do it really - and offer visitors the the option to take part in an activity.”

Above: Breaking the flax stalks to get the fibre at Morningside School, Hackney

Above: Grace’sharvest at Rosendale Allotments, Dulwich Below: Processing flax at the London College of Fashion

Below The final garment designed to show off the variation in texture of the different yarn processed by different people.

A two-hour group visit with refreshments will cost £10 per person and include a presentation about the history of the gardens, a tour and a chance to meet staff and volunteers. Extended visits costing £25pp will include an activity such as willow fedging or seed sowing.

Set up in 2001 and awarded the Queens Award for Voluntary Service in 2014, the gardens now attract 8,000 people a year and features a 21m polytunnel complete with banana plant, peach, apricot and loquat trees, purpose built eco building, tandoor oven, orchard, and playhouse. www.amcgardens.co.uk

Credits: Ryan Saradjola (photos), Quentin Hubert (stylist), Ka Hei Law (hair and make-up), London College of Fashion knit technicians.

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A Space to Grow in Sunderland

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hat do you get when a careers advisor, lawyer, cook, psychologist, librarian and environmental worker walk into a cafe? A community garden in the grounds of a 7th century monastery! Rob Hunt (the careers advisor) is the mastermind behind A Space to Grow, a community garden situated in the grounds of St Peter’s Church, Monkwearmouth, Sunderland.

Here he describes how the project came about.

“The site itself is an important historic place of Christian worship established by Benedict Biscop and frequented by Bede.

Following Sunderland City Council’s decision to celebrate the monastic history by improving the site, I decided to put the old North East adage about ‘shy bairns get nowt’ to the test.

“Our pitch to the council was that we wanted to create a community garden reflecting the monastic heritage of the site. We would include a kitchen garden, which would have provided food for the monks, a herb garden, which would also have provided food but would also have doubled as a medicine cabinet, a meditation space for quiet contemplation and reflection, and finally bees, because like Biscop Bear (A Page 12

Space to Grow’s mascot) monks like honey - and mead. We also described how one of the primary aims of the garden would be to bring together the Church, the local community and the University of Sunderland, which is situated by the site.

“The council’s response was positive. They granted us not only some space but also offered help constructing fences and raised beds, laying paths and the purchase bee keeping equipment.

Which is how we came to find ourselves, one night in January 2014, in a cold medieval church huddled over a set of blueprints for a garden.

“We got busy fundraising.

Barbara, the cook at our barbeque developed a phobia of ever having to cook a sausage again. Several of us have walked or cycled to Lindisfarne from Sunderland and experienced spending a night in tents on the North Sea coast during the remnants of a hurricane!

“A year on, we now have a coherent set of aims for the project: to bring the community together, promote wellness (physical and mental) through gardening, and generally be a good thing in the local area! A Space to Grow is almost ready to

go. The work on the grounds of St Peter’s Church has begun, the raised beds are filled with topsoil and in place, the bee keeping equipment is about to be ordered and thoughts are being turned to what we will grow.

“This time next year we hope that the local community and the organisations we have contact with will have benefitted from the garden. We’ll be working with local schools to provide an opportunity for their pupils to learn about growing food and the importance of the environment.

Similarly, we hope to provide the university’s students with a sense of community in their new location and to give the clients of Centrepoint, a charity working with homeless young people, the opportunity to be part of something wider and experience the many benefits of gardening for both physical and mental wellbeing.

“As a group we know there is a lot of hard work ahead to make this ambitious project a success, but it is a privilege to have this opportunity. Besides, compared to sleeping out in a hurricane and mopping your tent out with a sock, how hard can it be?” https://aspace2grow.wordpress. com

Events

Give me shelter – FCFCG North Wales Winter Gathering 2015

Natural building at Menter Felin Uchaf

Timber framed building by Adrian Farey

Trying out traditional sign-writing

Tyfu Pobl community growing gathering of 2015 was held in North Wales at the beautiful Rhyd y Creuau Field Studies Centre, Llanrwst. Part of the site’s two hectares of wooded grounds are run by Golygfa Gwydyr, a nonprofit, community led organisation who have a community garden there.

Lucie Taylor from the Community Land Advisory Service Wales (CLAS Cymru) then explained to the group what you need to ask yourself if you require planning permission: is your building or structure a ‘development’? She suggested that one initial way of working out if you require planning permission is to consider whether or not you’d need to wear a hardhat – if so, then it is most likely going to require planning permission!

the Welsh Government’s new guidelines about planning in the open countryside. And finally, a workshop with professional sign-writer David Kynaston, giving attendees the chance to develop skills to produce beautiful signs for their projects.

The morning session of the gathering was based around the theme of ‘shelter’ and the types of buildings it’s possible to erect on community growing projects. Dafydd David-Hughes, Project Manager at Menter Felin Uchaf Centre, began the day by introducing the many beautiful natural buildings they have on their site. Menter Felin Uchaf is a social enterprise and training facility for young people to learn conservation skills and natural, traditional building techniques.

Dafydd, the Project Manager, spoke about the importance of working with the local planning officer and of having a preapplication dialogue.

Adrian Farey is a sawmill owner and timber-framed builder.

He shared images of many of his creations, explaining his preference of sourcing local Welsh wood, the design process and some of his experience with the planning requirements.

Lucie went on to explain permitted development rights, and if you have them what you are able to build without submitting a planning application. A discussion followed about how planners often have their hands tied – there is no guidance on how to deal specifically with community growing structures, so it’s difficult for planners too. The key messages were that CLAS Cymru is there to support you, and it’s very important to work with planners, not against them!

The afternoon began with a tour of the beautiful Golygfa Gwydyr community gardens.

Attendees then had a choice of workshops including ‘in bed with business’, a rocket stove demonstration, a planning surgery with Lucie from CLAS Cymru, and a session discussing

The first Tyfu Pobl gathering of 2015 was a resounding success with interesting and practical sessions provoking healthy discussion amongst members. Days like this provide an opportunity for community growers to get together to share knowledge and inspiration: a key aim of Tyfu Pobl.

Prescribing Gardening, 27 May, London This conference for healthcare professionals will feature information and advice from practitioners, case studies of therapeutic gardening projects and a tour of Phoenix High School’s farm. The event is organised by Hammersmith Community Garden Association and Growing Health, supported by FCFCG. Suggested donation: £20 To book follow the links from: www.farmgarden.org. uk/farms-gardens/your-region/ london Page 13

Management

Spring clean at the garden centre H

ulme Community Garden Centre in Manchester have had a hectic few years delivering large projects, expanding the staff team and seeing their site double in size.

Inevitably some areas of their day to day operations have been rather neglected. Rachel Summerscales, who took over as Manager just over a year ago, describes how they are getting more than the garden itself ready for the next growing season and the resources they’ve found to help them in this task.

“When you’re inundated with eager volunteers, seeds to sow and plots to tend, it’s easy to get absorbed in the everyday and turn a blind eye to those boring, but essential tasks that pile up in the office. At Hulme Community Garden Centre we’ve been so engrossed in our work that we have tended to bury our heads in the sand (or soil) and take our eye off what’s happening backstage. As a result we have out of date systems, tired templates and a stressed staff team. Time for a spring clean!

“To start with, we closed our gates to visitors and volunteers for a couple of weeks and took advantage of the wintry weather to hunker down in the strawbale classroom for some vital prepping, plotting and planning! .

“Then the team went on a very snowy minibus trip to visit the Growing with Grace project where we did some fun team building whilst dismantling a very wet yurt in the snow. We brought home some ideas about site interpretation and signage.

We also want a yurt of our very own now of course! This was Page 14

funded via a bursary from the Green Flag Community Awards pilot project (see page article on page 3).

“The outcome of all this preparation is that we will now be revamping and overhauling our systems throughout the remainder of 2015.

“On the business side of things, we are updating our finance procedures, increasing inhouse production of plants and creating a stronger marketing strategy. These improvements should combine to make us more efficient and sustainable in the long term. This work is supported by a Business Advisor from Locality and funded by a Social Investment Business Group grant.

“We have accessed a development grant from The Tudor Trust and, along with the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation (GMCVO) and the University of Gloucester, we will be using this to: • build a database to allow us to better monitor attendance and progression routes for those accessing services.

• carry out a Social Return on Investment exercise for the whole organisation. The results of this will inform the creation of a bespoke measuring tool for wellbeing work in gardens and food growing settings. This tool will be disseminated nationally through the Growing Health Network and the FCFCG. For help with Human Resources and Health & Safety issues we have accessed pro-bono support through Business in the

Community and by building on the relationships created through our Corporate Volunteering programme. We have also been able to source free staff training through GMCVO, MACC (the voluntary and community sector support organisation for the city of Manchester) and also by utilising a capacity building grant which was attached to our European Social Fund grant.

Lastly, we have reviewed and overhauled our volunteering and service delivery programme, introducing extra sessions, clear job roles and a regular volunteer forum to assist with ongoing evaluation of services.

“Hopefully our visitors and volunteers will not notice all of this frenetic ‘behind the scenes’ activity and will instead be able to enjoy an improved experience when they are on site.”

Rachel is also an FCFCG Fieldworker. Contact FCFCG if you’d like help getting your project’s spring clean off the ground. admin@farmgarden.org.uk

Resources

Community growing resource Book review pack - New from FCFCG Learning with Nature: We are pleased to announce the publication of our new Community Growing Resource Pack. Based on our popular Community Garden Starter Pack, this fully revised and updated resources is a comprehensive introduction to setting up, developing and sustaining any type of community growing space. It provides: • Easy to read advice and information on the issues you are likely to face.

• General information on the key areas of starting and developing a project.

• Routes to more specific and specialist advice.

To allow for differences in the regulatory context in each country and to direct readers to the most

relevant sources of advice and support, we have produced three versions of the pack: for Scotland, Wales and England (which with supplementary information will cover Northern Ireland too).

The packs for Scotland and Wales are available as hard copies or to download. Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, for the time being the England pack will be available as a download only. www.farmgarden.org.uk/ publications

Contaminated land guide for community growers A new guide for community gardeners and allotment holders, offering information about growing food on land that may be contaminated, has been launched by the Grow Your Own Working Group in Scotland.

‘A Guide For Growing On Land Which May Be Contaminated’ focuses on what to do about sites which could be contaminated through past use. It details the steps needed to determine if land is suitable to grow food, illustrates methods to mitigate contamination, provides case studies of techniques that groups have used to overcome the issue and signposts to specialist agencies.

This guide was produced in partnership by the Central

Scotland Green Network Trust, FCFCG, Scottish Allotment and Gardens Society and Scottish Natural Heritage. Download a copy of the guide from the Grow Your Own Working Group website. www.growyourownscotland. info/news/new-guide-for-growingon-contaminated-land Printed copies are also available direct from the FCFCG Scotland office. scotland@farmgarden.org.uk

A how-to guide to inspiring children through outdoor games and activities

This new resource for families, schools, or anyone working with children is full of fun activites and games to get children outdoors, to explore, have fun, make things and learn about nature.

Suitable for use with children aged 3 - 16 years and written by experienced outdoor teachers and Forest School practitioners, this practical guide is filled with information, tips and ideas to make planning outdoor activities easy and stress-free.

Each activity or game is simply laid out with step by step ‘how to’ instructions as well as suggestions for variations and a list of resources needed. We particularly like how each spread includes a section giving insights into the ‘invisible learning’ that is taking place when children are engaged in the activity being described.

Published by Green Books.

Price: £17.99 - FCFCG members can order copies with a 30% discount and free delivery using the code FCFCG2015 at the checkout (valid until mid June). www.greenbooks.co.uk/ Book/474/Learning-withNature.html Page 15

Funding and other opportunities Alec Dickson Trust The Trust is passionate about volunteering and about young people making a difference.

Grants of up to £500 are available for projects in the applicant’s local area that involve local people and can demonstrate that through volunteering or community service they can enhance the lives of others, particularly those most marginalised by society. www.alecdicksontrust.org.uk

Asda Foundation Community Grant Programme This programme is open for applications from community groups for grants of between £5,000 and £20,000 from the new Community Grant Programme.

You can check to see if your project is likely to be accepted by using the online eligibility checker. www.asdafoundation.org

B&Q Waste Donation Scheme B&Q operates a waste donation scheme through all stores. This scheme allows donation of waste materials, for example slightly damaged tins of paint, off-cuts of timber, odd rolls of wallpaper and end of range materials, to community groups, charities and schools. www.diy.com/corporate/ community/waste-donation

Biffaward Biffaward’s main grants scheme is for projects that provide or improve community spaces, cultural facilities and places for outdoor recreation. However, often groups only need a small amount of money to make a difference to a local facility. The Small Grants Scheme offers quicker access to lower levels of funding to make these projects happen. For details of both schemes visit the website.

The Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation England & Wales

www.biffa-award.org

The aim of the trustees is to help raise the quality of life in the UK, particularly for those who are young, disadvantaged or elderly.

Each year grants totalling about £2.5 million are made to a wide range of charities.

UK Community Foundations is the managing agent for Comic Relief’s Stronger Communities theme.

Priority is given to small, locallybased groups or organisations in areas of disadvantage that have a clear understanding of the needs of their community and are undertaking action to address these needs. Visit the website to find out more and contact your local community foundation who will have details of closing dates for each programme in your area.

www.bernardsunley.org/index. html

Comic Relief’s Stronger Communities

http://ukcommunityfoundations. org/programmes/comic_relief

Foyle Foundation Small Grants Scheme This scheme is designed to support smaller charities in the UK, especially those working at grass roots and local community level, in any field, across a wide range of activities. Grants of between £1,000 and £10,000 are available. www.foylefoundation.org.uk/ small-grants-scheme Page 16

Funding and other opportunities Garfield Weston Foundation

The Professional Gardeners’ Trust

Sylvia Waddilove Foundation

The Garfield Weston Foundation helps small local community organisations and is open to applications covering a wide range of charitable activity. Areas funded include: education, arts, health, environment, community, youth, religion and welfare. Grants of up to £50,000 are available.

The Professional Gardeners’ Trust was established in 2004 to fund training and study for working gardeners in the UK and Ireland.

Sylvia Waddilove Foundation provides grants to charitable organisations for new projects relating to education, music composition and performances, herbal medicine, medical research, disability, the assistance of the elderly and farming.

www.garfieldweston.org

Green Grants Machine Green Grants Machine are the UK’s most comprehensive source of information on grants, loans and awards available to help your business go green and save on energy bills. www.greengrantsmachine.co.uk

Jewson is giving away £100,000 to help build better communities Funding of between £1,000 and £50,000 will be awarded to community projects that will make a real difference to the lives of local people, now and in the future. Nominate a project for a chance to win. www.buildingbettercommunities. co.uk

mycommunity.org. uk This new website from Locality offers a range of support for anyone who wants to take control over what happens in their community, with information, grants, advice and resources.

The PGT provides gardeners with the opportunity to acquire skills and gain qualifications through part-time courses and work placements. This enhances their careers and benefits the horticulture profession as a whole. http://pgtrust.org

Pure Community Energy Fund Pure Leapfrog operates the UK’s leading social investment fund for community energy. The fund provides low cost loans to help communities, primarily in deprived areas, purchase their own renewable energy assets. www.pureleapfrog.org/page. jsp?id=65

Screwfix Foundation The Screwfix Foundation is a new charity set up by Screwfix in 2013.

It has a clear purpose of raising funds to support projects that will fix, repair, maintain and improve properties and community facilities specifically for those in need in the UK. www.screwfix.com/jsp/landing. jsp?id=ScrewfixFoundation

Spirit of 2012 Funding is available in the UK for the creation of opportunities to enable disabled people to participate in arts and cultural activities, individually and with their families. www.spiritof2012trust.org.uk

www.pwwsolicitors.co.uk/ funding-applications/13-the-sylviawaddilove-foundation-uk

The Watkin Jones Community Fund Offers grants of up to £1,000 to support projects aimed at promoting communities throughout the UK, with particular emphasis on enhancing the physical environment and improving quality of life for local people. www.watkinjones.com/about-us/ community-engagement

WREN Community Fund The Community Fund (previously WREN’s Small and Main Grant Scheme) offers funding of between £2,000 and £50,000 to projects which will provide, maintain or improve a public park or other public amenity in the vicinity of a landfill site. www.wren.org.uk/apply/wrengrant-scheme

Remember to...

Look out for our enews bulletins with more resources, funding and other opportunities. And members can access a wealth of online information resources at: www.farmgarden.org.uk/ infozone Page 17

FCFCG member services

Make the most of your FCFCG membership

A

s an FCFCG member you are part of the wider movement of community-managed green spaces that benefit from the support, representation and promotion FCFCG provides.

Here’s a summary of the key benefits available to you.

Support Services • Development staff and a pool of experienced Fieldworkers based across the UK provide practical help and advice on a range of subjects and issues.

• Emergency information and support (eg for disease outbreaks such as bird flu).

• Free financial advice session with our Finance Manager (subject to availability).

• Access to specialist support networks and initiatives (eg School Farms Network, Growing With Schools).

• Networking and training opportunities on themes requested by our membership.

These events are free or highly subsidised for members.

Publications and mailings • Members’ magazine Growing Places • Single hard copies of our publications are available free to members on request.

• Multiple copies of promotional publications such as maps and leaflets are also available.

• Circulate your inserts for job vacancies, events etc free of charge in our postal mailings.

Travel Bursaries • Travel bursaries of up to £150 (when available) towards the costs of visits to other community groups in your area Page 18

or to our training/networking events. For more details contact your local FCFCG staff member.

Online Services • You will have access to our comprehensive online resource centre in the members Info Zone on our website.

• Copies of publications and newsletters are available to download.

• Using FCFCG website’s online shop to market items for sale (in development).

• Advertising and promotion for your events on our website.

• Our site has specific regional or country pages with useful local information.

• Regular e-newsletters and ebulletins to keep you informed of news, funding, training and information resources.

Other benefits • Discounts with various suppliers of goods and services. For details see: www. farmgarden.org.uk/membersupdates • Information about a public liability insurance scheme designed specifically for allotments and community gardens (joining FCFCG does NOT mean you automatically have insurance cover).

• Access to our exhibitions, digital presentations, photographs and videos.

• Access to FCFCG grants and bursaries (when available) and subsidised feasibility studies and consultancy services at discounted rates.

• Members are prioritised to be featured in our popular map

publications, highlighting city farms and community gardens in regions across the UK and available free to the general public.

• FCFCG can help raise your profile if you host events that we run, have an article in Growing Places or host a Seeing is Believing tour for policy makers.

• Members can nominate someone to the FCFCG Board.

NCVO/SCVO/WCVA membership NCVO in England, SCVO in Scotland and WCVA in Wales are umbrella bodies providing specialised information, advice and support to the voluntary and community sector.

All English FCFCG members with an income of less than £10,000 per year are eligible for free NCVO community membership. For details of NCVO benefits see: www.ncvo-vol.org.uk All Scottish FCFCG members with an income of less than £25,000 per year are eligible for free SCVO membership. For details of SCVO benefits see: www.scvo.org.uk All Welsh FCFCG members with an income of less than £10,000 per year are eligible for free WCVA membership. For details of WCVA benefits see: www.wcva.org.uk Unfortunately, we do not currently offer a similar benefit for members in Northern Ireland.

FCFCG member services

Get in touch...

F

CFCG has several offices throughout the UK through which we deliver our services to members.

Areas covered by our Development Workers Key: Northern Ireland Scotland

General enquiries

Wales

Staff at our UK office in Bristol can deal with general enquiries, press and PR, membership, finance, and requests for information and support. Our Chief Executive, Jeremy Iles, can also be contacted at this office.

South West

Tel. 0117 923 1800 admin@farmgarden.org.uk

Development staff across the UK Our development staff can provide specialist hands-on advice and have a knowledge of sources of information, support and funding in your area.

For details of individual staff in each team please see the relevant pages of our website.

Wales Our Wales staff work from offices in Cardiff, Pembrokeshire, and Llanberis. The team in Cardiff deals with general enquiries and can provide contact details for the other offices.

Tel. 02920 235 535 or 225 942 wales@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/wales

Scotland Our Scottish office is at Gorgie City Farm, Edinburgh.

Tel. 0131 623 7058 scotland@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/scotland

Midlands North England London East England

Northern Ireland

South West

Our Northern Ireland office is in Belfast.

Tel. 07725 699 442 ni@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/ northern-ireland

Tel. 0117 9213 800 southwest@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/ south-west

Our South West office is the GreenHouse in Bristol.

England

Projects and partnerships

North

School Farms Network

Our North of England office is in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Tel. 01207 562 317 north@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/north

Tel. 01373 302 204 ian@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/ education/school-farms-network

London and the East

Community Land Advice Service (CLAS)

We are currently recruiting in London. Please use the contact details below until further notice.

Tel. 0117 9231 800 london@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/london

England: Tel. 0117 966 9491 england@communitylandadvice. org.uk

Midlands

Wales: Tel. 02921 960 966 wales@communitylandadvice. org.uk

Our Midlands office is at Cardinal Wiseman School Farm in Coventry.

Tel. 07807 822 717 midlands@farmgarden.org.uk www.farmgarden.org.uk/midlands

Scotland: Tel. 0131 225 2080 scotland@communitylandadvice. org.uk

www.communitylandadvice. org.uk

Page 19

Growing Places Members’ magazine, Spring 2015 UK Office The GreenHouse, Hereford Street, Bristol, BS3 4NA Tel. 0117 923 1800 admin@farmgarden.org.uk

www.farmgarden.org.uk News, events, job vacancies, how to set up a new city farm or community garden, members zone and online seachable database giving details of city farms and community gardens across the UK.

Please note: This newsletter can be made available in large type, Braille or on audio-tape.

Tel. 0117 923 1800

Supporting communities to manage their local green spaces.

FCFCG receives funding from many sources including:

Patron HRH The Prince of Wales Chief Executive Jeremy Iles Chair David Drury Charity no. 294494 Company no. 2011023 Scottish charity no. SCO39440 Printed using vegetablebased inks on recycled paper.

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Join us : www. facebook.com/ fcfcg.uk

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