Shaftesbury Homegrown's own Facebook Page
Shaftesbury Home Grown
Shaftesbury Homegrown is a community group who grow food seasonally as naturally and sustainably as we can. At our field on the edge of town a changing group of volunteers have shared farm tasks, learned new skills and enjoyed good company for more than 15 years.
During the Covid 19 pandemic, with the majority of volunteers needing to practice ‘social distancing’, whilst on the farm we all kept 2m apart. We appreciated the outdoor activity and social side of collaboration. We set out to grow as much food as possible and introduced an extra working session. We also started to experiment with the ‘no-dig’ approach.
Summer 2020 gave us an abundant harvest of fruit, vegetables, and safe fun. Many of us have described our involvement as ‘a life saver’ and this is one of the things our chair, Helen English, spoke about when interviewed for This is Alfred. Hear her on the 27th August podcast at 17:06.
https://thisisalfred.com/podcast/the-alfred-daily-27th-august-2020/
We’re open to new members who want to grow food with like-minded people. Members get a discount (proportional to the hours worked) on seasonal produce. We work on any or all of Wednesday, Friday and Sunday mornings from 10am - 1pm.
If you would like to join us, or just want to visit to see if you’d like to join us, then please call or email first:
Helen 07789845498 or email: englishhv49@gmail.com
This is not all that we do. In September 2020 our group to decided to explore using the land more effectively and playing a larger part in Shaftesbury’s community. As well as inviting more people to become involved in food production, we opened up opportunities for land-based projects to run alongside the farm’s core activities. Since then
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Several additional volunteers have become regulars in our work sessions.
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There is already an arrangement with Shaftesbury’s Tree Group who have established a tree nursery. Over the winter of 2020/21 young trees that couldn’t yet be planted because of the pandemic were safely held in the tree nursery within the Shaftesbury Homegrown site.
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A local shepherd continues to graze sheep on part of the land. The sheep go away in midwinter but sometimes return with their lambs early in the year.
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Some of our volunteers with children experimented with family sessions which for a time became a weekly family work day.
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Initiatives such as ‘In Jolly Good Company’ which is a dementia-friendly group set up to benefit people with or without memory loss have shown an interest in joining us. This hasn’t happened yet but remains possible.
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We have installed a compost toilet to the site. This makes us even more family-friendly and facilitates use of the site for therapeutic gardening.
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With more active volunteers we’ve been able to maintain the hedgelaying enjoyably. We receive many (very welcome) compliments about the appearance of the hedge, and the poles that are cut provide a valuable resource.
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Using crowd funding, we raised funds for a new polytunnel which extends our growing season.
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Several teenagers doing the Duke of Edinburgh Award have joined us for sessions when they are not in school. They commit to working on the land and have applied themselves to all manner of tasks.
May 2022: Our Crowdfunder appeal was successful and the new polytunnel is already productive.
Wattle Fence Making
Download a guide to make Wattle Fencing here >>
