We are a small team drawing on many years of experience. We work directly with grassroots community groups across Scotland, enabling them to develop and improve their greenspace and nature-based activities.
Green health benefits are increasingly recognised by our policy environment in Scotland - our role is to support communities to adopt an asset-based approach that enables them to develop, thrive and sustain - evolving with the people they serve. We bring expertise from our members and partners using a peer to peer delivery approach that saves time and money - helping people to get it right . We work closely with the Scottish Government to help shape and enact policies and practice that can support and deliver sustainable change.
Our members are climate champions - they work with nature; building and nurturing healthier soils, gardening with wildlife and offering a broad range of educational opportunities to communities on growing and sharing local food. Increasing numbers function as hubs, sharing opportunities and services such as the redistribution of surplus food, clothes swaps and as facilities for health and wellbeing groups.
Our support helps them to go further.
If you are a group involved in improving your community greenspace then join us. Its free, with a range of member benefits and you can post your details, opening times and activities on our Scotland map below.
Advisory service: We offer a free enquiry service for anyone looking for support with their idea. The service provides valuable advice on key topics ranging from composting to volunteer engagement; as well as signposting to key contacts and simply being able to talk a practice issue through. We welcome approaches not only from communities needing support, but also agencies looking to support them; such as local authorities, third sector interfaces or housing associations.
News bulletin: Subscribe (link to scotland@farmgarden.org.uk) to our monthly bulletin with news, events, resources and funding.
Peer to peer exchange: Our members can access The Community Learning Exchange. A Scottish government programme that supports groups to explore and develop an idea directly with another group that has experience to share .
Enterprise support: Would you like to develop some trading activity in your setting but need help to do so? The Accelerate- Enterprise Programme might be able to support you with this.
Training: We can offer tailored training for sites or groups. Rather than teaching every individual to be a community gardener we seek to identify and coach leaders of activity to develop their skills and capacity in delivering practical and engaging garden related activities irrespective of age or ability. We are experts in delivering a broad range of topics from ‘Designing and running community consultation’, ‘Essentials to garden design’, ‘Designing a programme for year-round engagement’ and ‘Income generation’ to’ Effective composting in your setting.’
Food growing strategies: We work with a range of agencies involved in writing and consulting on their Food Growing Strategies - supporting people to identify and enact their approach and networking them with other partners with similar experience. We represent the members we serve through our advocacy and public affairs work combined with our role coordinating the ‘Grow Your Own Working Group’ partnership. This means we are uniquely placed in leading on the key issues that we know are important to our communities - including health and wellbeing, and climate change.
If you’d like to know more about working collaboratively we’d love to hear from you, please contact: lou@farmgarden.org.uk
| City / County | |
|---|---|
| 1st Step | Linlithgow |
| Abronhill Community Garden | Glasgow |
| Abundant Borders | Eyemouth |
| Aros Park Historic Walled Garden | Isle of Mull |
| Beauly Cares Community Garden | Beauly |
| Beechbrae SCIO | Edinburgh |
| Belmont Lane Community Gardens | Glasgow |
| Belville Community Garden | Inverclyde |
| Bennochy Community Garden | Kirkcaldy |
| Blackhill's Growing | Glasgow |
| Bothwell Community Garden | Glasgow |
| Breaking Ground | Irvine |
To contact us at our office in Edinburgh call 0131 623 7058 or email scotland@farmgarden.org.uk
Louisa Evans, Scotland Development Worker
Tel: 0131 623 7058
email: lou@farmgarden.org.uk
Karen Davidson, Scotland Advisor
email: karen@farmgarden.org.uk
Irina Glinski, Scotland Administrator:
email: scotland@farmgarden.org.uk
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