Community food-growing gardens and allotments across Greater Manchester will open their gates to the public on Saturday 16th March and invite local people in to get involved.
Gardens in Wythenshawe, Fallowfield and Moss Side are taking part in The Big Dig Day to show their neighbours how spending time tending their local community garden is not only fun and satisfying, but healthy too.
Many of the participating community food gardens are putting on activities such as seed sowing, preparing raised beds, and planting onions.
“Making first contact can be the biggest hurdle to getting actively involved in a community garden – the Big Dig Day makes it easy to walk in off the street and see what’s happening on the plot,” says Big Dig Manchester co-ordinator Kirstin Glendinning.
Wythenshawe alone has 3 Big Dig gardens taking part. Sally Yates from Wild About the Addy is looking forward to the event:
“We’ve been working hard on our garden for months, so we’re really excited to invite friends and neighbours in to join us for a work day. We’ll be launching the growing season by planting a load of seeds, both vegetables and flowers to attract the bees in.”
Phil Dodd who works on the Moss Side Community Allotment runs a tight ship there, and is a bit of an old hand when it comes to open days.
“There will be plenty to do on the day, but most importantly we want it to be a fun, social event – we’ll be putting on some food, and visitors are welcome to pop in for a cuppa and see what we’re up to.”
Perhaps the most intriguing activity on the day is the Welly Wangling Competition at Bethnall Drive Allotments.
“We’ve just started on our community plot so there’s a lot of jobs to be done. It’s not all work though – the search for Bethnall Drive’s Welly Wangler of the Year 2013 is on!” says Everard Bektashi-Brown, site secretary at Bethnall Drive Allotments.
To find your nearest Big Dig garden, go to www.bigdig.org.uk/manchester/ and simply fill in your postcode.
The Edible Gardens Open Day is part of Big Dig's work to encourage more people to volunteer and is funded by the Cabinet Office’s Social Action Fund and co-ordinated by Sustain:the alliance for better food and farming.
In Manchester the Big Dig is run by The Kindling Trust. For more information and to register your community garden as a Big Dig Garden, visit Kndling's Big Dig Project Page.