Community Farm (1)

About a year ago, I started walking to work.  This gave me an extra hour a day to think, pray and ponder ideas and led to me realising that two of the things I am most passionate about are ‘community’ and ‘the environment’.  My walking route took me past a couple of brownfield sites and I began to dream up a vision of a food-producing hub with all sorts of other attractions (including chickens) that could engage residents from my diverse community and have the potential to improve all of our lives a little bit.

Without really pushing for it, I managed to get some funding to spend a day a week progressing this idea.  As I pondered it some more and started connecting with other individuals and groups working on environmental projects in Bradford, my idea started to take a different direction.

One of my first mini-planters, made from fence off-cuts

A few weeks ago, I started making some mini-planters out of old fencing, to over-winter onions and garlic in my own garden.  As it is an ever-evolving landscape, I was making the planters small, free-standing and portable so that I could be flexible about where I put them.  At around 45x45cm, the planters are large enough to house a good number of plants, while being small enough to easily keep on top of weeding and watering.  Plus, they can go anywhere, as long as it was in a sunny position.  I started thinking about how almost anyone could to grow vegetables in one of these – even complete beginners, or those with very little space.

     what if…?  

This led to me thinking, what if rather than having a site, there were tiny slices of farm in people’s gardens?  Not centralised, but scattered, yet rooted in a community where relationships already exist and have the potential to be strengthened and broadened further.  No property to protect, no staff to employ, no building to construct and maintain, no reputation to build, yet no limits to what we could do together.  Several of my neighbours have already taken an interest in the vegetables I grow in my own garden.  What if they started with one of my mini-planters and with a little help from me, started growing in their own tiny slice of farm?

What could this lead to?  Well, the planting and growing could develop, from one or two mini-planters, into larger vegetable beds.  Neighbours might start sharing crops with each other and could even coordinate who grows what, so that we are all doing our bit and sharing what we produce.  We might plant together, learn from each other, share successes and failures, share growing space, eat together, get to know each other, trust each other… it could go on and on.

All this could develop from a community farm idea, rooted in and growing up within the existing networks and physical and social infrastructure of the couple of streets where I live.  But the potential doesn’t end at vegetable growing…