Never has it been more important to create an equitable food system where individuals and communities can take back control of the way they buy and eat food. Food growing skills are being lost, and despite being in a city that has more than 91 languages spoken with in it, and that is rich in food cultures access to education to learn land based skills is patchy and often expensive. Add to that an explosive housing market and more and more people finding themselves in unstable housing, many people come to the conclusion that food growing, gardening or even a career on the land, is just something that feels like a pipe dream, totally unrealistic and unaccessible.

But we want to show people that that is not the case-growing food and gardening is for everyone and to begin with we would like to address the issue of how to learn the skills needed when it feels that any learning opportunities are out of reach. To do this we are teaming up with Yeo Valley Organic who are supporting us to support more equitable learning opportunities by giving us the opportunity to offer free spaces on our How To Grow courses to people from BPOC backgrounds. Starting in mid July our courses will return to being in person at our Cultivation Place in Speedwell, as well as still being available online again from September.

The course, which we call How To Grow, offers 6 weeks of learning, both practical and theoretical, and each participant will learn what we like to think of as the building blocks of growing. We cover soil and soil health, seeds and seed sowing, propagation techniques, composting knowledge and how to work with wildlife to create a healthy ecosystem in your space, whatever that space might look like. Whether you have a balcony, a window box, a space for a few pots, or a tiny urban back garden, or even no space at all but are still interested in learning, this course is for you and what we hope will happen in the long run is that the mainstream gardening media will wake up and see that gardening isn’t all chocolate box and perfection, but sometimes is a fight for land and for somewhere to grow!

So if you have a BPOC heritage please do get in touch and let us know why you would like to take part. The first in person course begins on Saturday 17th July and all you need to do is commit to 6 Saturday sessions from 11 to 3. Interested? Send an email to sara@ediblebristol.org.uk and we will get back to you to confirm your space!!