Tag Archives: urban agriculture
Big Dig in Birmingham – 2016
The Big Dig returns to Birmingham this April for the third year running. The event will be on the 16th April and will see gardens across the city throw open their doors and give anybody the chance to get down and get digging to really kick start the growing season. Last year was a great success with over 1,600 people taking part across the UK, 1,207 of which had never been involved with the gardens before!
We’re keen to top that number this year so keep your eyes out for further information on the gardens that will be involved, free seeds giveaways and networking events which will all be advertised on here in the coming weeks and months.
Between now and then head over to The Big Dig website and take a look at some of the photos from last year and get inspired to make this year bigger and better! Alternatively, pop over to our Birmingham map and register your own event here.
Mapping Birmingham’s Community Growing Spaces
It has been a while in getting there, Growing Birmingham are please to be able to make available for the first time a map of Birmingham’s Community Gardens, Growing Spaces and Community Orchards.
The map is available here
We know this is by no means complete, and we can add to it all the time, so if your local space is missing and you want it adding then please let us know in a comment below or by e-mail to [email protected]
Some of the spaces on the map already have more information linked to them, web site addresses and the like, we hope to add pictures too soon.
Birmingham’s first Big Dig Day
Saturday March 16th saw the first ‘Big Dig Day’ in Birmingham. Across the weekend, over 30 grow sites, allotments & community gardens opened their doors to all.
Although the weather forecast was non-too hopeful, groups all around the city put this aside, and welcomed new and existing volunteers to many varied and fun events.
Visiting my first event of the day, I arrived at Edible Eastside, to be met by Jayne & Rob. Lizzie Bean soon arrived and work began in earnest on the next stages of the earth oven.
Despite the rain, volunteers soon started to arrive, and with a fire lit, and work underway, I took my leave to visit Park Lane Garden Centre in Aston for the second stop of the day.
Park Lane were beginning their work on a new community garden next door, and as well as welcoming volunteers, Julia took time to show Clare Savage and I the plans and setting for the new garden.
Big Dig News……..
Birmingham Food Growers NEED YOU!
On the 16th March food growing projects across Birmingham will be opening their doors, gates and sheds to locals in order to introduce you to their sites, start the growing year and get help from volunteers to complete a range of activities (tree planting, seed sowing, soil preparation and MORE!). Across the city, 26 sites have signed up so far….more on the way.
If you want to find out what’s happening there are lots of projects signing up http://bigdig.org.uk/
Community food growers meeting at Birmingham Botanical Gardens
Are you interested in urban food growing, as an individual or part of a community group?
On the 16th January Big Dig Brum is holding a meeting at Birmingham Botanical Gardens.
As well as an opportunity to meet new groups, gather contacts and get ideas, the meeting will also include short presentations by local author and gardening journalist Alys Fowler and Mike Hardman (Birmingham City University) on the need, importance and context of growing food in Birmingham.
Making community food growing part or every town & city – The Big Dig Project plans to expand across England.
Across England, six cities are already participating in the Big Dig Programme: Brighton & Hove, London, Sheffield, Middlesborough, Coventry and Manchester.
The Big Dig is a national project to engage people in community food growing projects across England, and is all about making community food growing a part of every urban landscape.
Eating, growing and involving – the power of food to bring communities together
Around 60 local residents and members of local community groups enjoyed a food sharing session on Sunday 30th September at the Coplow Street Grow Site in Ladywood.
The Taster session was the first of a series of events organised by the North Summerfield Residents and the Black Environment Network which revolve around engaging with ethnic minority communities to celebrate, grow and share knowledge of food and food growing.
This first event of this new project to link local communities with food growing opportunities centred around a food tasting session.
Rosario, Argentina: a city of urban farmers
In 2002, Argentina suffered a severe economic crisis, resulting in many of the poor becoming unable to feed themselves. In Rosario, however, a large scale community farming effort alleviated these problems, and led to a rise of urban farming as a way of life which continues today.
Herligheten Urban Allotment Project, Oslo, Norway
Initiated in April 2012, Herligheten is an urban food project founded on ecological principles. It consists of 100 allotments and a 250m² field growing ancient grain types such as spelt, emmer and einkorn.
Located in the heart of Oslo in ‘Bjørvika’, a rocky island in the centre of a building site, the project is surrounded on all sides by roads, railways lines and industrial buildings.
One of the primary reasons for its location in an industrialised sector is the hope that ongoing monitoring with shed light on the effect of pollution on the success rates of urban gardening.
The Carrot City Talks: Jarred Henderson
The final speaker at the Edible Eastside event was Jarred Henderson, a designer and urban grower at Wayward Plants. Jarred’s talk was substantially different than the previous two, it focussed primarily on the sites operated by the organisation he works for; why they exist and the benefits they provide to communities.