Right from the start, we thought that teaching would be a major role for us at Perth Community Farm, and that's exactly how things have turned out. We don't try to grow tons of stuff to sell, but we do grow as wide a range of fruit and veg as we can and focus on showing people how to do the same in their own gardens. (We share out the produce among us volunteers - there's a lot at the moment! - and give away any surpluses to various charities).
We teach in an informal way - people are welcome to drop in on our regular volunteers' day, Wednesdays 11 to 3, to look round, and lend a hand. There's always loads of different things at various stages of growth to see. I also run more formal courses in gardening (also fruit tree pruning/small scale woodland management and more):
NEXT GARDENING COURSE 10TH AUGUST
THE FIRST STEPS
"The greatest journey starts from beneath your feet" - never more true than in relation to gardening. Once you've taken those first steps though you'll find that a lot of it is really simple, and the basic natural patterns are just common sense when you think about it. It can get more complicated for some of the things you might like to grow but and we're lucky to have this internet resource for looking up any detail we need. By the way, you don't need to know the Latin names of things...
ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER...
A lot of my own input into the farm comes from my travels and work on other projects around the UK and in Portugal, it's been inspiring to meet all these amazing people and a lot of fun too :-)
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| Ruth and I lived on this beautiful farm in Shropshire for several years, getting our feet well and truly on the ground. You can call me a New Age Pensioner but the more I garden the more magical it gets... |
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| Over the years we converted this static caravan into a wonderful pied-a-terre... |
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| ...we ran courses there too |
HEALING POWER OF GARDENING
We never thought how big the therapeutic side to what we do at Perth Community Farm would become though. We have connections with many of the local occupational therapists and other healthcare workers who often bring clients to join in with us. It's been transformational for people, and helped some who have barely been outside for years to get back into contact with people again, and have a lot of fun in the process.
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| We haven't had quite so much of the farm patch in cultivation before |
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| The community garden at the Cwm Harry project, Newtown, Wales - early days, just a hard packed lorry park on an industrial estate... |
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| Cwm Harry again, in full bloom here - nothing like showing what's possible |
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| Tombreck Farm on Loch Tay, I volunteered there a few times - it was cold on that visit! |
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| Much warmer here in Portugal, pruning olive trees with friends Janet and Clive |
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