Looking Back

Sowing the Seeds

As a local growing charity, we have made thousands of vegetable plant seedlings available to the community for free during the Coronavirus outbreak, which we hope is making a huge difference. Initially, the seedlings were destined for growing projects across the borough, including the community gardens at Craig’s Community Centre in Stockbridge Village, King George V Playing Fields in Huyton, Huyton Resource Centre and Activate Base in Kirkby. However, due to the outbreak of Coronavirus we have had to rethink how these tiny shoots will fulfil their potential.

We was worried that we would be closed due to the pandemic and after speaking with the Swanside and Roby Councillors we were allowed to stay open and decided to donate seedlings across the Borough.

This was promoted, even on the radio and with the amount of requests that came in for this, we decided to continue with the seedling donations from march to July so that people could grow at home, school, supported accommodation, hospital, mental health units and community groups.

Working with a vastly reduced number of volunteers in order to strictly adhere to social distancing guidelines, our team worked hard to pot more than 566 lettuce, 511 tomato plants, 498 cauliflower along with beans, peas and onions for the community to plant at home. With so many people stuck at home there’s no better time to grow. Whether you’re an experienced gardener or a complete novice, we want you to know that you can grow your own food easily and without specialist equipment or the need for much space.

We had requests from people from across the Liverpool City Region and received funding from The Steve Morgan Foundation and LCR Care so that we could continue and expand the donations to people across LCR.

This was such a success, we have now decided to continue these donations next year due to the feedback from the survey monkeys we sent out.

It has been amazing to see how the people have pulled together during these times and I have met so many lovely people during this period and I know we will remain in touch, working together in the future to support the community.

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“It has been amazing to see how the people have pulled together during these times and I have met so many lovely people during this period and I know we will remain in touch”

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