Help us Grow a Food Forest

Hi, Thanks for taking the time to read about our fundraiser……

We are Common Ground Brighton with a plan to grow a food forest on the bottom half of our garden. This will enable us to produce more food to feed our community and we’d love your support to raise funds for the purchase of plants and equipment to help us achieve it.

Common Ground is a community food growing project offering a place in nature for marginalised groups in the community to come and learn and share knowledge about food growing, cooking, and other land-based skills while reconnecting with the earth, themselves and each other. The project sits on a quarter-acre of Soil Association certified organic land, as part of Stanmer Organics cooperative in Stanmer Park, Brighton.

We currently run and operate solely by volunteers; Alexandra & Nick are the project managers, supported by Roxy, Adam, Melissa, Maozya & Rachel who offer much-needed and welcomed advice and support to different aspects of the project. We also have a huge group of wonderful volunteers who come to the garden each week to help with the physical work of taking care of the land and with growing the produce.

Due to Covid19 we were unable to start running our sessions this year for our refugee and migrant community. So instead we quickly changed our plans, and decided that if we couldn’t have people come and join us at the garden, we would bring the produce to them. We franticly ordered seeds (as did most of the country) and managed to get crops sown and planted out. We partnered with Voices in Exile who had already set up a food bank for their clients and by the end of the summer we had donated over quarter ton of food (from just half our site) to over 40 families within B&H.

We are now turning our hand to growing over winter, we had a new addition to the garden in May, the construction of a 50ft polytunnel, which we think is going to come into its own this winter. This will provide much needed warmth for plants over the colder months to our more delicate crops, such as oriental salad leaves, salads and other tender leaves. Along with some hardy kale, just in case the ones outside struggle as they have been prolific throughout the summer.

Now that we have the top half of our garden is operating and producing food, we very much want to make the bottom half into a Food Forest so that we can produce more food, to feed more people who really need it. We already have a few established fruit trees and a beautiful pond (that we are about to extend and make wildlife friendly). Having the funds to extend to this part of the garden will be an amazing opportunity for our community, not just for growing more food, but to have a tranquil place for people to come and just be. In the future, we plan to use this as an educational resource for others in the community who may want to learn how to grow food this way, because you don't need a huge field, you can apply this to small gardens too.

This is the area we have cleared ready for the food forest to be planted up. In the distance are our established fruit trees and further out of the shot to the right all across to the other side of our garden are more fruit trees and our large pond. We have already planted some green manures which will protect the bare soil until we get the main plants in the ground.

What is a Food Forest?

A food forest, also called a forest garden, is a diverse planting plan of edible plants that attempts to mimic the ecosystems and patterns found in nature. Food forests are three dimensional designs, with life extending in all directions; up, down, and out.

There are roughly seven layers of a forest garden; the overstory (large fruit & nut trees), the understory (dwarf fruit & spice trees), the shrub layer (fruit bushes), the herbaceous layer(herbs), the rhizosphere layer (root crops), the soil surface layer (ground cover crops), and the vertical layer (climbers, vines). Using these layers, we can fit more plants into a space.

In these layers we are planning to plant a diverse range of fruit and nut trees, herbs and spices, fruit bushes and lots of perennial vegetables, which will grow back year after year. Forest gardening is low-maintenance & sustainable. It is also great for wildlife and great for the planet, as no pesticides, herbicides, weeding, crop rotation, mowing or digging is required. This means less work, more food and it's all-natural too!

Our food forest will act as an educational space for our participants, volunteers and the wider community. Sharing knowledge of other ways to grow food and about the plants we are growing and how to cook and use them in day to day life.

Also, when the vegetation matures, it will create a forest like feeling, providing a peaceful natural space for our community to come and relax in.

We'll need to use a small amount of the funding to purchase some equipment; fencing and posts (to keep the rabbits from eating everything), long sleeved gloves, shovels and forks for digging in the new fencing.

It is more important than it has ever been for us to connect with our environment, our community, and each other and to produce local food. We need to understand how we can sustainably and responsibly cultivate and protect our fragile ecosystem for future generations. We can do this if we come together as a global community to meet the challenges we face. Common Ground is our local contribution to this worldwide human mission.

Anything you can give to support our project to feed more people would be an amazing gift, if you are unable to then please do share our page with your friends and networks.

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If you would like to volunteer with us please email us on commongroundbrighton@gmail.com

Thank You