The idea
We are looking to build resilience within our small business and move the propagation part of our business from our founders back garden up to The Kitchen Garden 5 acre plot at FarmED, this would provide us with the means to grow everything from seed on the plot itself allowing the rest of the team to help share the workload and this crucial part of the veg growing process as well as providing additional educational opportunities and highlighting the climate benefits of nutrient dense local food for those visiting us or engaging in food related courses and events at The Kitchen Garden or FarmED.
We have already raised £11,000 towards a Keder Greenhouse 6m x 10m through Sustainable Charlbury & Westmill Solar grants and need to raise the rest to complete the project in time for this years growing season, we are looking to fund the following through Spacehive: vents, extra door, staging & benches. We hope you can help!
What we'll deliver
- Vents for the propagation unit
- Extra Door for the propagation unit allowing for better access
- Staging for our seed trays allowing people to work and care for seedlings at an appropriate and practical height
- Heavy duty potting benches
Why it's a great idea
We would like to use our voice and our expertise to educate all ages on the importance of food production as a means to mitigate climate degradation, by improving the health of our soil, our community and our planet.
We have seen with our own eyes the effect of our community veg growing, our volunteer sessions and our CSA course on our attendees with many starting up their own CSA initiatives or growing schemes within a year of having completed the course - this network is not just about growing food but has huge potential for spreading a more globally significant message. What would happen in the UK, where 70% of our land is farmed, if government and larger businesses were able to invest in small scale local farms that promote biodiversity, sequester carbon through diverse cropping and no-dig methods and where each local £ spent = £3.70 of benefit to the local economy? There is such an opportunity here to grow food, improve people's health and that of our land and planet.
Steps to get it done
- Ordering, buying and installing the main propagation unit by Keder (already ordered with build date)
- Buying the vents, extra door from Keder and building them into the main propagation unit
- Buying and building the modular static benches from Northern Polytunnels
- Buying and erecting the heavy duty potting bench from LBS
- Buying and installing pipes, ground cover and overhead irrigation
A little more about us:
We run a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project which supplies local people and restaurants with the equivalent of 180 veg boxes a week from a 5 acre plot that we rent from FarmED (a centre for Regenerative Agriculture and Education around Food and Farming). We founded our micro business in 2016 and have grown from small beginnings of 30 boxes a week to where we are now, incorporating not only food production, but community building and education into our ethos and activities. Up until this point we have been doing all of our propagation from a small greenhouse in one of our back gardens but as the business has grown, this is becoming a less viable option, in addition, being situated within a model regenerative farm, we feel there’s a great opportunity to not only tell but also show the full story of the growing cycle from seed to plate. We have carefully sourced and costed a fantastic propagation unit and are part way towards funding the full project.
