The scheme has over 90 members and has been busy connecting garden owners and land managers with aspiring gardeners over the last year. It is run by volunteers with a passion for bringing the community together, reducing our carbon footprint, and reviving food growing skills. The first pairing in the scheme has had a fantastic year of food growing. Julie Green, scheme coordinator who also shares her garden says “I’ve loved being involved with the scheme, I’ve met great new friends, and my garden has really been brought to life as well as producing some delicious veggies. You can’t beat home grown food – I’ve reduced my food miles, I know exactly where my veg comes from, and we harvest something at most times of the year that goes straight from the ground into my cooking pot!”
With so many people keen to grow food but with nowhere to grow it [2], Grow Your Neighbour’s Own is appealing for more owners to share their garden with a member of their community. There are all sorts of benefits; making new friends, putting unused land to good use, and sharing the produce being just a few. If anyone has space of any size they would like to share, the scheme would be pleased to hear from you.
For more information about the scheme and to register as a garden owner or gardener, please go to our website: www.growyourneighboursown.org.uk or call Julie on 07796 172196 / 01273 735795.
The garden share scheme, set up by Transition Brighton & Hove [3], is also part of the city-wide Harvest [4] project, encouraging the growing, eating and enjoyment of local food.
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NOTES FOR EDITORS
1. Grow Your Neighbour’s Own matches gardeners with garden owners and landowners. We want to help form lasting (gardening) relationships between people, preferably people who live near each other – the garden/land owner and gardener arrange between them what they will grow and how often the gardening will take place, and share the produce as it is harvested
2. In Brighton & Hove there over 1,000 people on the allotment waiting list, with some sites having a waiting list of over 10 years, and over a third of the lists are closed.
3. Transition Brighton & Hove (http://www.transitionbrightonandhove.org.uk) is an organisation encouraging community responses to the challenges of climate change and peak oil, and is part of the national Transition Initiatives. Transition Initiatives (formerly Transition Towns, but the collective name now changed to include cities and villages) are the national network of villages, towns and cities around the country and now the world who have signed up to the transition process (now numbering more than 60 worldwide, with over 600 considering signing up). The word 'transition' refers to the transition we hope to make from a city heavily dependent on fossil fuels to a city that is more resilient to a future of reduced energy supplies.
4. Harvest Brighton & Hove (http://www.harvest-bh.org.uk) has brought together lots of different organisations interested in food who will help people in the city learn to grow their own, make use of surplus produce and eat more tasty local food. Harvest is working with partners to increase the amount of food grown in the city: on windowsills, in back gardens, in allotments, and in community spaces like parks and around housing estates.
For more information please contact:
Julie Green 07796 172196;
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Chris Callard 07812 185 760;
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Karen Gardham 07941 824 347 {jcomments on}