Grow offers opportunities for people of all ages and ability to get involved with Growing Food and Connecting with their community.

The Start

Grow started in 2008 with just 3 people on an organic farm outside of Belfast. Since then Grow has established two very successful Community Gardens ‚ one in an urban setting in North Belfast at the Waterworks and one situated in an organic Farm in Helen’s Bay.

When Siobhan set out to create the first Grow Community Garden, her aim was to enable people to experience the benefits of growing food, working outside with the soil while making friends and building a strong sense of community.

Our sites

The first Grow project began in April 2009 with a small grant from the Big Lottery Fund. This project targeted people who had suffered from stress, anxiety or depression enabling them to work together to create an organic community garden, growing their own vegetables and taking home the produce.

Building on our first garden, our second project, Grow Waterworks has developed a community garden in the Waterworks in North Belfast. This project, funded through the Peace III programme focuses on peace building and promoting good relations through community gardening. It includes asylum seekers and refugees living in North Belfast.

Healthy eating and cooking

In addition to promoting community gardens we will promote healthy cooking and eating as another key objective. Focusing on reducing costs by growing your own and tackling food poverty we plan ensure that people on low budgets benefit from growing and eating locally produced organic fruit and vegetables which can often be cost prohibitive from more commercial sources.

We run cooking demonstrations and healthy eating workshops as part of our Community Gardens. For our cook days we harvest what we grow and then local chefs cook it on site taking questions, providing recipies and eating it with participants. We also run other events where participants cook with the produce grown in the garden. Courgette soup, courgette cake, courgette fritters…and the list continues

Community Development

All of what we do will have community building and eco-therapy at its heart so whether working with a community to reclaim some land and create an edible organic garden, working with older people in a residential setting or developing projects to tackle food poverty we believe our work will not only improve the health and well being of those individuals involved but also act as a springboard for community development and action.

We will support, represent and promote community-managed gardens, allotments and other green spaces, creating opportunities for local communities to grow. We will work with these community groups to help empower local people of all ages, backgrounds and abilities to build better communities, often in deprived areas, and to make a positive impact on their surrounding environment.

We will also promote community gardens and urban green spaces demonstrating their value with decision-makers, funders, the public and the media.

Our work contributes to creating better communities across the Northern Ireland in both urban and isolated rural areas. Groups are usually established in response to a lack of access to green space combined with a desire to encourage strong community relationships and an awareness of farming and gardening.

Grow offers a unique opportunity to people to reconnect with their community and learn how to grow their own food

• No experience necessary to get involved
• Work alongside an experienced community gardener each week learning how to grow vegetables and flowers
• Improving health and wellbeing through working outside and connecting with others
• Take part in as little or as much as you want
• Community space, connecting people to people and the community