Gardeners with GREEN fingers in Mold are proving that you don’t have to be a horticultural expert to have fun growing your own food at home.
Spending more time at home during repeated lockdowns over the past year has generated a great deal of interest in gardening across the UK.
And ten households in Mold participating in the Parkfields Community Center’s Growing Food project are no different.
Thanks to a grant from the Hubbub Foundation UK, they are all learning new skills and have been provided with the equipment and materials needed for square foot gardening – in a four foot square raised bed.
“Square Foot Gardening is a simple, well-established way of growing plants,” says Rachel Farr of Cae Rhug Holistic Farm in Gwernaffield, who conducts the training and supplies the plants.
“It’s ideal for beginners and doesn’t have a lot of space to groom. There are also plenty of guides on how many plants are in each square meter. The passionate growers of the Parkfields project have worked together with pleasure and are now starting to harvest the lettuce they planted in June. ”
Kerry Hughes, one of the new vegetable growers, added, “I’ve wanted to grow my own salads and vegetables for ages but didn’t know how to start. Being part of the Parkfields program was great. We got a lot of support and information from Rachel, all the equipment we needed from the Parkfields team and we shared tips with each other.
“I enjoyed being out in the fresh air, watering the plants and looking for snails. It is a real sense of achievement to eat foods that I grew at home in my garden. I don’t expect growing my own food to be a huge cost saving, but it definitely brings me closer to nature and is a nice way to relax and spend time. ”
The Parkfields Community Center was one of only four members of the UK Community Fridge Network to receive a grant from the Hubbub Foundation UK.
Caroline Collis, Administrator at Parkfields who runs the centre’s communal refrigerator, said, “We were delighted to receive the Hubbub grant to run the vegetable growing program.
“This is a pilot project to provide the local people involved with new skills to try and grow their own food at home.
“We are sharing what we are learning here in Mold with the Community Fridge Network across the UK to help other Community Fridge groups who may want to start growing food in their neighborhood.”
