We’re continuing to develop our community garden which after a year of development now has raised beds for food-growing for the Village Larder. Our social gardeners successfully grew food from a pop-up for the larder last year whilst developing the community garden. Growing food together is educational, brings people together socially to exercise outdoors. Growing for the larder encourages community engagement and purpose, it provides a source of healthy produce for people on lower incomes. Developing other areas of the garden to provide a restful, communal green space will encourage more volunteer-engagement,and is good for mental and physical health.
Proposed on behalf of: SHED (Social Horticulture for Experts and Dummies) part of Community Roots (prev known as West Kilbride Community Support Group). We had originally wanted to create a much more structured work area throughout the garden, but as work progressed we have realised that the area is not able to be made so. SHEDs volunteer group spent time in the garden trying to figure out what it wanted and what we wanted from it, and we realised that we could compromise. Areas near the top and left of the garden are not easily made flat and has some lovely trees and large shrubs, which if fixings were made for removable hammocks people could see views over the village and out to Tarbet Hill. Inspired by our group visit to Woodland Wake-up last year, we thought that people might like to take a rest and feel “on top of the world” in the garden. This will help with those of us who experience fatigue or pain (like with fibromyalgia or cancer recovery) when gardening or that find they need space in a social setting (like with Autism Spectrum Disorder and anxiety disorders). We also have an area which despite removing many if the unwanted sycamores and weeds will not lend itself to further hard landscaping. This was a big setback for us, however we have decided that we can work with the slope and plant it with quick to bloom colourful wildflowers among some vined vegetables/fruit like squash and strawberries. This will not only encourage pollinators in, but it will transform the unsightly weed control meshed area into something quickly and cheaply enjoyable to look at.
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