Some of you may be aware that we volunteer at the community vegetable plot in our local park where we live in Keynsham. The aims of the plot are to encourage people to get involved in growing their own food rather than relying on complex, unsustainable and sometimes vulnerable supply chains that keep the supermarkets stocked (or not). Part of the process of encouraging people to grow their own food is passing on the skills and knowledge needed to do it successfully. It should be noted that from the experience of people who grow their own food, no two years are ever the same, so the definition of success in this endeavour does tend to shift somewhat...
With the plot being in a public park, what we do is visible to anyone walking past. That offers the opportunity to engage passers by in conversations about what we do and why we're doing it. While the location of the plot in a very public place can pose a risk of vandalism, in the year that we've been involved since moving to Keynsham, we've only had to deal with one incident. So, the benefits of being in a public place and reaching out to people using the park far outweigh any risk of vandalism.
Yesterday (Saturday 7.10) was one of the scheduled work sessions on the plot. The work undertaken was harvesting the last of the courgettes, digging out the courgette plants, working over the soil, then planting a range of over-wintering onions, shallots and garlic. It also involved reconfiguring a couple of paths to better facilitate access to the new planting. There was also the inevitable tidying up on the rest of the plot as well.
Fortunately, there was a good turnout of volunteers to get the work done. There was a discussion about what we thought needed to be done, a decision was made and then people got on with the tasks in hand. It was a good example of self organisation in action with the only deference to authority of any sort was to those with years of gardening knowledge. In all the practical community work we've done over the years from neighbourhood clean ups and litter picking through to gardening at a resident run local park, the self organising principle has always been the way we got things done. It's simply down to people being able to trust each other.
The plot does produce a surplus of food. Back in the summer when we were lifting the garlic, we had so much, we started to give it away to passers by, engaging them in a conversation about the aims of the plot. When we were checking and picking the courgettes and squash during the late summer and early autumn, any surplus was donated to the community fridge in one of the cafes on the high street. Yesterday, the three massive courgettes we picked (see the image at the top of this post) were given away to grateful passers by. It's a community plot so by definition, the surplus food is for the community. Any work done by residents in exchange for the food is always appreciated:)
The plot in the park is in some ways, a demonstration of what can be done. We certainly don't want it to be the only community vegetable plot in the town. We want people to see what we're doing, think about what spare ground there may be in their neighbourhood, and then get together with other residents to create their own community vegetable plot. We've seen one example of this in one of the older suburbs of the town where ground around an electricity substation has been turned into a vegetable garden.
Our involvement with the plot in the park is about putting our beliefs about community action and localised food production into action. We're also involved with a local, resident run litter picking group. This involves clean ups after major events such as the summer music festival and the winter festival. It also involves people having patches they look after and litter pick. It's about showing we care for where we live. That feeds into a broader sense of identification with place and community. All of which is written about in this piece here: What do we actually do? 15.9.23.
Yesterday (Saturday 7.10), there were a couple of bookfairs we could have travelled to and attended. One was the Dorset Radical Bookfair held in Bournemouth and the another was the Anarchist Bookfair in London held at a number of venues across the East End. Given our strained relationship with what passes for an anarchist 'movement', both would have been tense experiences. We're past the point in our lives where we want to subject ourselves to unnecessary tensions. We prefer practical, community focused activity where stuff actually gets done:)
Love this!!
Check out Charles Dowding of No-Dig fame (YouTube, Instagram, etc).. if you're not familiar with his approach, it might help you a lot 🙏💚🙏