Sowing the seeds for a growing community

Lots of people in the Totnes area have gardens that are underused, or that go unmanaged due to a lack of time, interest, or physical mobility. At the same time there are many residents living in flats, town houses and rented accommodation, who have no access to a garden, and who would love the chance to grow their own food, herbs and flowers.

This is a local initiative linking up people who have an unused corners of their garden with local commited growers. Many of us have had enough of life as nettle-farmers and want to use our unloved plots to grow cabbages, connections – even friends! The benefits for the garden owners  include a share of the produce, the pleasure of seeing a lovely developing vegetable plot, and the sense of community in being part of a sharing initiative.

This service matches and introduces committed, enthusiastic, and growers with local garden owners who want to see their gardens being used more productively. 

Get involved

 If you are wishing for the chance to get outside, grow some tasty veggies, get your hands dirty, and vastly reduce the food miles involved in your food, or if you have a garden plot that you would like to offer to a grower, then please contact Lou at the TTT office.

Updates

At the beginning of 2009 we had every single one of last year's gardeners continuing to grow again this year - and pour energy and passion into their gardenshare plots.  There are also gardeners and garden ownes joining the project every week. But as always we are looking for more - so do get in touch if you are looking for a patch, or want to match your patch to a keen grower!

We have also run the 2nd season of the Basic Gardening Course, which is now run from Bowden House.

Well done everyone for your incredible hard work this year! Some of the gardens went from 0-90 in a matter of a few weeks this spring. A huge thank you to all the garden owners, who have come forward to offer their unused garden plots, share their space, and watch them be cultivated and transformed...

...and the project continues to recruit growers and garden owners all the time...

Writing now in mid September 2009 there are 30 gardeners that are munching the benefits of this scheme at the most recent count (not including the garden owners' families they are also feeding). The idea of the project has always been  for it to be a long-term community initiative, with people gardening the land year after year if possible. So althougth the project is still in its early stages, the notion is that slow is beautiful, and often more sustainable. It also feels that every single person that grows more of their own food this year is taking an important step towards greater local food resilience. This is not only in terms of food security and local self-sufficiency, but also in contributing to the great tradition of growing, propagating, seed-saving, and making links in our community.

Here are some photos of the 2008 -09 season and some of the joys and trials of this years garden share participants, with some inspiring photos of how the gardens are going!

Here are Lou & Sue, Gardenshare Growers, making beds in a wintery early March.

Simone and Nigel's Gardenshare Plot at Pat's in winter and then later in spring

...to this...

Excitingly, the project seems to be really thriving in the gardens and spaces that are being used - the gardeners have put a lot of hard work and dedication into seeing the plots flourish, not to mention the commitment of the owners to letting their space be used. There are still more available in and around Totnes - so do get in touch if you want to get growing! And of course garden owners please do call us if you would like your garden growing again.

Trich & Chris - Gardening in a fantastic walled garden in central Totnes:

Here are some pictures from the Edible Garden Crawl  through some of the fantastic Gardenshare gardens. Thanks so much to everyone who opened their gardens to us!

The gardenshare was on BBC Southwest News on the 13th of October 08...Click here to see the clip.

Hugh Fearnley-Whittinstall also filmed an episode of River Cottage (on Thurs 30th Oct) featuring the Gardenshare scheme. Click here to see an article about it that appeared in the local media.

The TTT gardenshare scheme was organising local basic gardening courses in Totnes. Over 40 gardeners were trained up between last October and the end of July 09. The courses are now being organised up at Bowden House by Nick Prater - the lovely gardening tutor - email nick@prater.totalserve.co.uk

Feedback

To read feeback from the Gardensharers involved in the project in 2008 click here...

Partners 

This project is works in partnership with South Devon Community Supported Farming . For more info or to join in contact Lou Brown at the TTT Office on 01803 867358.   

If you would like to set up a similar project in your area see the link below - all the forms and certificates are downloadable. The only thing we ask is that you let us know you are using them and doing it - just so we can get a sense of how wide it is going...

Thanks -

Lou

Click here to find out how to start-up and run a Gardenshare Scheme in your area.