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ECO GARDEN


Share and share alike!


Not having a garden or allotment shouldn’t stop anyone from growing their own – as Joanna Pazucha discovered


privacy issues are important – most of the gardeners come in via a back gate, so they do not walk through the landowner’s house or past their window. Given the current interest in growing things locally, cutting down on food miles, and the shortage of council-run allotments, Garden Share seems an obvious solution.


“I get such a buzz from matching people,” says Mary Lambert of Transition Keynsham who co-ordinates the scheme. “It can be the start of new friendships and garden owners are chuffed that someone is using their garden and it’s not just a sea of weeds.”


Kelvin Legg says he has no hesitation in recommending the scheme. He and his wife work and did not feel they had the time to do all of their garden justice. “When our boys were younger, that part of the garden was an adventure playground,” Mr Legg said. “When they grew up it became dead space. We were thinking about developing it when we saw an advert for Garden Share. We thought we had nothing to lose and it’s really worked out.


80-year-old Chris Face - garden sharing has brought friendship and gardening opportunities


“Two years ago I was in hospital for a month after a fall. I felt really low, but this has made all the difference.”


What “this” refers to is a patch of garden covered in raised beds filled with a mouth-watering selection of strawberries, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, marrows and green beans - all tended lovingly and proudly by 80-year-old Chris Face.


But it’s not his garden.


It belongs to Kelvin Legg, who until two years ago was a complete stranger to Mr Face. A scheme called Garden Share brought them together.


An ingenious idea, it’s run by the Keynsham-based Transition Group which encourages residents to look to their local communities for food and services. Garden Share matches people who want to garden but don’t have the space with people who have the space and don’t want to garden. And the landowner gets 20 per cent of the fruit and veggies grown on his plot.


Gardener and garden owner must live reasonably close to one another – the ethos of the Transition movement is not to have to drive too far for anything. Interested parties meet, see if they like each other and if they do, they sign an agreement, which is renewed every September. Security and


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“Now we don’t have to worry about what’s going on down at the end of the garden. Having Chris there is no inconvenience to us – most of the time we don’t know he’s down there, unless occasionally we see his head pop up over the fence.”


In turn, Mr Face cannot praise the Leggs highly enough as they went above and beyond what was expected of them. They built raised beds and filled them with compost, cleared weeds and constructed three large wooden compost bins of a quality that would make Monty Don nod with appreciation. Most landowners just hand over a bit of garden and let the gardener get on with it.


“They’ve helped me a lot,” Mr Face says of the Leggs. “They’ve been really good to me.”


Mr Face is delighted with his patch of land and gardens as naturally as possible – using nettles and comfrey to feed his plants and horse manure to enrich the soil. He produces much more than he, his wife and the Leggs can eat, so the surplus goes to friends, family and his local church.


“I’ll be here for as long as I can, but you never know people’s plans. If the Leggs change their mind, I’ll just move on to another garden,” says Mr Face.


Both men are so full of praise for the scheme, but surely there must be a downside somewhere? They smile. “No,” says Mr Face. Mr Legg is as convinced: “Absolutely not.”


For more information about Garden Share, visit www.transitionnetwork.org/nearby


Country Gardener


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