For the last year, our Community Growing Project at Vine Road has been under the leadership of volunteers Rashadee Miller and Claire van Rhyn and certainly undergone quite a transformation!

Using growing methods that are organic and regenerative, cultivating soil health and encouraging biodiversity, this year, we successfully started all but a few of our crops from seed. The site of the Community Growing Project includes the fenced, raised bed area – referred to as The Encampment – as well as the Polytunnel and adjacent outdoor growing spaces.

There has been an impressive range of shared crops grown this year including: broad & French beans, sweet corn, potatoes and sweet potatoes, fennel, turnips, strawberries, garlic, oca, varies varieties of summer and winter squash, tomatoes, peppers, chillies, aubergines, tomatillos, cucumbers, chard, amaranth, quinoa, Jerusalem artichoke, Summer and Winter lettuce and carrots, The brassica crops are well underway for winter and early spring harvests.

We also made a particular effort this past season to interplant both wild and cultivated flowers to support pollinators and establish a better growing ecosystem and the flowers delight visitors and passers-by alike.

We have also started two new key projects. The first of these has been establishing regular food box deliveries via the Richmond Foodbank Network at Castlenau Community Centre, where we successfully managed to provide 15 weekly deliveries of fresh, organic produce that benefitted many local families in need. We are now making plans to scale this support next year and hope to build closer ties between the Growing Project and the families the Network serves.

Our second project has been to engage with the International Seed Sovereignty campaign and establish seed saving as part of our annual seasonal tasks. Besides becoming more self-sufficient in seeds for the next season’s main crops, e.g. tomatoes, we have also been able to contribute seeds of five locally adapted varieties to the London Freedom Seed Bank to share with other community groups.

The Community Growing Project is active throughout the year and in all weathers! We are keen to welcome new volunteers and participants. There is always a range of tasks for all levels of skill and energy, with support on hand to help you become familiar with the project and activities.
Currently, we run weekly open sessions on Saturdays, Mondays and Wednesdays but please contact [email protected] if you would like to know more.

We also run free monthly Growers’ Training sessions which can be booked on Eventbrite.