An edible garden in the space of a car parking space!!

This year, as part of Bristol’s Chelsea Fringe, Alan Down of Cleeve Nursery has grown an edible garden, all in containers, that literally fits into the space that is the equivalent of a car parking space. This is brilliant for many reasons. Firstly it shows that pretty much anything can be grown in a container as long as the container is large enough. Secondly it shows that you can get a whole lot of fruit and veg into a very small area and keep it looking very beautiful, with a seating area, trees, shrubs, herbs and annuals. Thirdly it’s inspirational and will give everyone who engages with it food for thought and encouragement to get growing in whatever space they may have.

The garden has been moving around Bristol, starting with a day on the harbourside and spending today on a parking space opposite City Hall on Park St, which was great as it meant George Ferguson could pop over for a chat and a sit down in the garden this afternoon, and then tweet about it! For the weekend the garden will be in the garden area of The Folk House on Park Street. To see it you will need to walk down the dark corridor to The Folk House and when you come out of the darkness the stunning garden will be in front of you in all it’s glory. Do go-Chelsea Fringe is an exciting garden festival and the Cleeve Edible Garden is beautiful.

The Get Growing Trail is an opportunity for everyone in Bristol to get to see some of the amazing Food Gardens and projects that there are in our wonderful city of Bristol. This year there are 32 gardens open on the weekend of the 7th and 8th of June, ranging from large scale urban salad production fields to community spaces and orchards.

Th gardens participate in the trail for a wide range of reasons but it gives everyone of them a chance to show their achievements, talk to local people who might like to get involved through volunteering and makes a few funds through plant sales or tea and cake!

The Get growing Trail map is live now here

St Agnes Park Edible Garden-PLANT

The Land and Food Forum was held as part of Food Connections week and organsied by the wonderful Matt Cracknell of Feed Bristol, alongside The Bristol Food Network. It brought together some amazing growers, organisations and people to discuss urban growing and land use within the local landscape and beyond. The weather was not on our side as there was a gale blowing but spirits were high as we talked about what is a passionate will to upscale food production within the urban landscape of Bristol.

These meetings are always amazing, and don’t happen often as us growers are usually more likely to be found elbow deep in compost at this point in the year, so it was fabulous to hear Tim Lawrence talk about Sims Hill, Matt talk about Feed Bristol and the Avon Wildlife Trust talk about the importance of looking after and respecting top grade soils looking forward into an era when climate change will be upon us for real.

The beginning of the results of a fascinating survey of food growing groups in Bristol were also discussed by Susan Rogers of Windmill Hill City Farm. This survey has looked at growing projects all over the city, from large scale business to small scale community gardens, and discussed with them, their workers and volunteers, how they have got to where they are today, what they grow and how they wish to move forward. This survey has been put together and fascilitated byThe Bristol Food Network.

There was also a Tiny Trowels session run, where we search soil to see what was to be found in it. There were worms aplenty but we also found wood lice, a spider and alot of baby spiders and millipedes and a grub or two, all showing how wonderful the soil at Feed Bristol truly is.

Feed Bristol is on Bristol’s Blue Finger, a finger shaped piece of land that straddles the M32 and is also home to Sims Hill and Stapleton Allotments. This land is at threat from development for a Metrobus scheme that will see the allotments and Feed Bristol cut through by a road that will only be used by buses, and see Grade A agricultural soil concreted over for ever. Only 3{2f2874fc6125dd5cf7bd0be296e4e150855e421b2444f8743791b81c4b31d296} of our UK soil is of this quality. Fo further info please see http://www.bluefingeralliance.org.uk

Polytunnel at Feed Bristol