Buried Treasure: What community gardens can teach us
How many of us yearn for a society where there is less anger fuelled by polarised social media views, where we feel less pressurised to buy things and where we can take a breath and feel more connected with nature and people? Across the UK there are Community Gardens – hidden gems that can provide this respite.
Thanks to funding provided by the Garfield Weston Foundation, we have spent the last 18 months working with Community Gardens in the Northeast of England helping them to strengthen their already strong environmental credentials. The support was part of a wider project aiming to create more sustainable circular solutions, to hasten the move away from peat in growing and to explore the potential for creating more green jobs in the locality.
Our impact report shares what was discovered by the project.
Community Gardens are highly valuable but under-resourced assets for local communities. They provide a social space where people can meet, learn new skills, connect with nature and grow food. The physical space they provide enables them to reach all sectors of society increasing community coherence.
The impact that Community Gardens could deliver is not fully utilised due to a lack of financial resources hindering their ability to create sustainable long-term plans.
There is a significant desire amongst Community Gardens to enhance their environmental credentials by increasing composting and being peat-free. Enrich the Earth helped to meet this demand which was only possible because additional resources were made available.
Community Gardens helped residents to understand the importance of moving from peat-based products. This was reinforced with communications from garden retailers. The initial impact of this wider communications campaign was initially limited but improved significantly when a collaborative approach was taken.
There are opportunities to help move from peat-based composts by using more local green waste. The project proved that this was possible but requires the full involvement of the local authority plus compost manufacturers.
Other countries have demonstrated that it is feasibly to create social enterprises that collect food waste from organisations and turn it into compost for sale locally. The economics for this currently don’t work in the UK and will require a change of government legislation to make it feasible.
There is a desire amongst Community Gardens to learn more from each other and share resources, but this is hindered due to limited funding.
Building on our findings we:
Are leading on a consortium of organisations to refine and expand communications around the importance of peat-free gardening.
Continuing to lobby for changes of legislation that will deliver a more circular economy and create green jobs.
Have launched a new social enterprise called Treasure Gardening the profits for which will support community growing initiatives.
Are exploring new partnerships to build on the momentum we have created.