Forest Gardening in Public Spaces during the Pandemic

We hope organisations of fellow community gardeners/farmers/foresters, such as Incredible Edibles, the Social Farms and Gardens and Environmental Education Networks, Orchard Project and Thrive; Agroforestry Research Trust, Common Ground, Community Forests, Friends Of the Earth, National Federation of Parks and Green Spaces, Open Spaces Society, Permaculture Association, Sustain etc will support us.

Note: This letter may be modified to reflect the focus of such organisations at national or local level. We plan to use different versions of it in Greater Manchester & Herefordshire (Good Luck to Tomas, Richard & all there). Even if a Park with a community garden were to close, the gardeners would hope to be allowed access to their growing sites.

Stay safe everyone, but if you can please do help take care of our community Forest Gardens. Publicly accessible food-producing, medicinal and therapeutic plants may be more valuable than ever this year.

A good letter raising vital issues. Is there a chance that some more enlightened/brave local authorities, like Adur & Worthing might support it?

Deborah are you a W&A resident? If so I can give you the chief exec's, or the head of sustainability's email?

Hi Paul

Sadly not I am in Arun – not particularly forward thinking- however happy to email Arun in any case.

I did go to W&A’s recent Zero Carbon 2030 event recently, which shows they are trying to be ahead of the game.

I think you already know their Chief Exec in any case (his name escapes me right now...........)?

If not, I will ask a friend who lives in Shoreham if she might consider giving W&A a go.

Cheers

D

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Hi Deborah - yes I'm in touch with him - let's see! But even better if it's a local (ish) person making the approach, no? Good luck with Arun 🙂

Hi Paul- I will forward your message to my Shoreham friend if that’s OK with you?

D

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please do Deborah. Alex at Worthing will be contributing to the last of our seminar series. I will raise our letter when I speak to him about that. But great if your friend could do as well - as a member of the NFGS!

We have support from the Social Farms and Gardens Network, Gr Manchester Environmental Education and Manchester City Councillors. Tomorrow there will be new announcements about the Lockdown and perhaps clearer guidance. Spatial injustice/inequalities seem greater than ever and food growing spaces are less open and less accessible for many this Spring.

Please share your views about how we can to (continue to) access public growing spaces in Parks and on housing agency and other community grounds. This has to be within restrictions around travel and exercise but surely is at least as important as other forms of exercise. There are trees and plants that need to be planted or cared for where they were recently planted; & Potential disruption to food supplies makes it urgent to grow more fruit and other fresh food. Such a crisis could help us develop growing spaces and the skills to grow climate resilient plants, soils and ecosystems?  

I heard a week or so back about the potential terrible waste/loss of a few years-worth of growing plant life in the looming scrappage scheme for saplings, shrubs etc grown commercially for re-foresting, rewilding, gardens, parks -they could be trashed in some government- funded mass destruction scheme. Does anyone know what is happening about this?