Posts Tagged ‘community gardening’
Lunchtime Gardening for Office Health
Posted in Models, Movements by Kate Archdeacon on September 23rd, 2011
Source: Sustainable Bristol
Photo: Ovagrown.blogspot.com
From “Will Business embrace Lunchtime Allotments?” by Paul Rainger:
Growing your own is all the rage. With long waiting lists for allotment space, we’ve seen veg beds spring up in parks, guerrilla growers taking over derelict land and even veg growing on supermarket roofs. The beneficial effects of reconnecting which nature through growing are well studied, from healthy eating itself, through to general improvements in health, happiness and even productivity at work. So, could leading business embrace Lunchtime Allotments as the next must have staff perk?
Will tomorrow’s young generation of more values-led employees see an hour lunchtime break to tend their veg as another key differentiator between good and bad employers, just as secure bicycle parking and showers are for many today? One company in Bristol, Arup, are already leading the way in the city. Staff in their city centre Bristol office haven’t let lack of space get in their way. They have simply taken over the nearby wide grass verge by the main bus lane.Now beans and courgettes pass by the window of the traffic heading up to the train station. You can even follow their adventures on [their blog http://ovagrown.blogspot.com/].
What if every business played its part in greening our city? Not the bland corporate shrubbery we see today, but the real veg growing of Lunchtime Allotments like this. Businesses would benefit from the improved productivity, health and wellbeing of their staff. And in these times of recession in the public sector, it may now be the best way of achieving the truly edible city.
Read the original article by Paul Rainger on Sustainable Bristol
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Community through Gardening: Post-Industrial UK
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on July 8th, 2011
Via The Ecologist
Photo © Henry/Bragg
From “Blooming Britain photo exhibition tours RHS gardens this summer“:
In 2010, artists Julie Henry and Debbie Bragg visited post-industrial regions around the UK to photograph people and communities who enter gardening campaigns, including RHS Britain in Bloom and RHS It’s Your Neighbourhood. The images are an anthropological study of the dynamics between public display and the gardener’s social standing and explore how this impacts on the wider community.
Visiting ‘in Bloom’ and It’s Your Neighbourhood groups in Manchester, East Ayrshire, Fareham, Castle Point and Tower Hamlets in London, the artists said, “We were initially sceptical about photographing community gardening groups. We felt that communities didn’t really exist anymore. What we found when we visited various groups around the country blew us away. We found that community could exist in the most unlikely places, from a tower block to an alleyway, using gardening as a cohesive link to bind the community together and improve their environment”.
Check out a selection of Exhibition Images.
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Integration of Community Gardening and Biodiversity
Posted in Models, RDAG by Virginia on June 11th, 2009
Ecological restoration and community gardens have been begrudgingly kept separate from one another. The integration of biodiversity with community gardens has received very little attention, which is surprising seeing that they have both been important contemporary environmental initiatives.
In essence, both these initiatives are interlinked. Biodiversity concerns are due to habitat degradation because of an ever increasing land required for urban developments. Urban developments in turn forces the relocation of land that had been traditionally used for farming into increasing wilderness areas therefore exacerbating biodiversity problems.
The Alex Wilson Community Garden(AWCG) established in Toronto in 1998 sought to rectify the divergence of ecology and community gardens by attempting to consolidate the two goals into one project. In trying to achieve this, the AWCG planted exclusively native species whilst maintaining space for a community garden.
Alex WIlson Community Garden
The AWCG can be used as a model for future community gardens to demonstrate the importance and feasibility of integrating biodiversity values with community garden initiatives.