Inspire your vision for community growing

There are an increasing number of people wanting to grow their own food, but waiting lists for traditional growing spaces such as allotments remain very high. You may be interested in finding an alternative growing site in your neighbourhood. Communicating a vision for community growing is an important part of getting everyone behind this shared goal. Finding spaces to grow food in urban areas is just one step on the path to making community growing happen in your local area. To get inspired and to inspire others, you might want to consider and share why you want to map spaces to grow your own food. If you’re not a grower, you might want to experience first-hand what it’s like to grow communally.

What are the benefits?

Maybe you want to live a more sustainable lifestyle, maybe you want to get to know your neighbours or maybe you use or learn growing skills? Whatever the reason, allotment waiting lists are long, and opening up empty spaces in cities to grow food communally is an alternative if you don’t have a community allotment nearby.

To find out more, why not…

Watch a film

Here’s the film we made to share community efforts in Manchester, Sheffield and New York (download it ).

More films…

Growing Cities
Grown in Detroit

Listen to a talk

Ron Finley: Guerilla Gardener South Central LA
Pam Warhurst: How we can eat our landscapes
Stephen Viz: a teacher growing food in the south bronx
Erinma Ochu: Everyday Growing

Visit a community garden or growing project

Many community gardens around the country host open days that are open for the public to come and try our growing activities. Find a garden near you. Several community garden centres and cultural venues with gardens might also hold events and growing activities that you can try out. Alternatively there are some amazing growing projects and food festivals happening around the country that you could find out about online or go and visit.

Community Growing projects

Grow Sheffield
Love Old Trafford, Manchester
Incredible Edible, Todmorden
Cracking Good Food, North West England
Biospheric project, Salford
Growing Birmingham
Brighton and Hove Food partnership, Brighton
Riverside Market garden, Cardiff

Read about the cultural value of community gardens

Cultural Values of Digging blog

Related Articles

Rising number of Britons growing their own food

Finding the plot: access to land for food growing groups in urban areas [note donation not a requirement to download]

Next Steps

Find partners that can help you make your vision a reality…

• 2. Find Partner Organisations

Do you have any comment? If you notice films, gardens and relevant articles not mentioned here, then feel free to post relevant links in the comments below.