The idea
Bedfords Park Walled Garden is run entirely by volunteers and has been growing produce without herbicides, pesticides or artificial fertilisers.
Every year we grow cane and soft fruit, but although we like sharing our produce with nature, we are losing a lot of fruits to pigeons and crows. We have not received funding for the running of the garden since 2018 and need to commit to trying to buy a walk-in fruit cage with a door to protect our crops. With more available fruit we can use this to make preserves, chutneys and provide fruit-based workshops. More fruit would allow us to sell more and make more funding for the garden. We have no paid staff, so everyday running, tasking and advising growing, harvesting, sowing etc is all down to our dear volunteers.
Our volunteers are aged from 16- 84 and are a wonderfully diverse bunch of characters.
#bedfordsparkwalledgarden
What we'll deliver
- Purchase and install a walk-in fruit cage
- Purchase and plant additional soft fruit bushes
- Community fruit-based workshops
Why it's a great idea
More fruit would allow us to sell more and make more funding for the garden. We have no paid staff, so everyday running, tasking and advising growing, harvesting, sowing etc is all down to our dear volunteers. Our fruit garden is over 20 metres long by 8 metres wide.
The additional funds will allow us to provide food growing workshops for the local community, and help us to expand to provide more opportunities for local people to volunteer and enjoy the historic walled garden.
Steps to get it done
- Reach our crowdfunding target February 2021
- Purchase cage + fruit bushes March 2021
- Install cage + plant fruit bushes March 2021
Our project will help bring insects into the garden and provide shelter and food for pollinators. Bringing in pollinators and helping provide nectar for our resident and other bees will increase fruit yields. The increased yields of fruit will benefit the volunteers and ultimately the community as we will be able to provide and sell more produce directly from the garden. Volunteers will be needed to harvest the fruit and also to make jams and jellies etc. We already have apple trees and volunteers carry out juicing. The juices are sold in our on site shop. Our produce saves food miles and provides naturally grown vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers to the local community.
