Allotments and community gardens have remained open for individual gardening and organised group activities. There’s been an amazing amount of fruit and veg growing, with surplus veg being distributed to neighbours and foodbanks.

As not everyone has been able to get outside, lots of groups have been providing gardening at home activities and other ways of outreach gardening and growing.

Download: Let's Keep Growing Resource Sheet

Featured Project

Let’s Keep Growing with Bannockburn House Trust

Bannockburn House Trust (BHT) BHT is currently one year into a two-year Climate Challenge Fund (CCF) project that aims to re-establish 4 acres of the estate for fruit and vegetable production.

This project will impact behavioural change on carbon usage, food behaviour and attitudes, increase local food growing through fruit & vegetable production and educate the community on carbon literacy.

Read more about the project

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Community growing and Covid-19: practical tips

Social Farms & Gardens Scotland has produced a list of practical points to help community growing groups to think through, plan and get back to growing. Find out more 

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Inspiring Ideas

Blooming well in the East End

Include Me 2 Club is a Barrhead-based charity, which helps children, young people and adults with additional support needs and disabilities. The club set up the Allotment Angels gardening initiative two years ago. Allotment Angels, based at Reidvale Community Allotments, joined forces with Urban Fox for East End In Bloom. Urban Fox is a children's charity working with families all over Glasgow’s East End. Susan Wilson, Include Me 2 Club’s Lead Volunteer at Reidvale Allotment Angels continued to look after the Reidvale Community Allotment during lockdown, along with volunteers and members as part of their daily exercise.  

Together, the two organisations provided 500 bags of pots, compost and vegetables, as well as 3000 seeds, which included sunflower seeds and wildflower seeds, to families to grow at home and to get the East End blooming with colour. 

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Getting people growing in hospital - Edinburgh

With patients unable to access hospital community gardens, The Cyrenians found an innovative way to do things due to Covid-19 restrictions. They delivered Garden Activity bags, including tools and wildflower seeds donated from Seeds of Hope Scotland every week to over 30 wards across 6 sites, as well as supporting people in their own homes.

Find out more

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Veg your ledge – Falkirk 

Community groups and organisations across Falkirk took part in a pilot project to get them growing their own produce from their windowsill. Forth Environment Link produced and delivered 250 Veg Your Ledge kits, which were given out to people working with 35 partners ranging from organisations like food banks to care homes.  

Each kit contained upcycled wood planters made by the charity’s reuse team, a bag of compost, vegetable seeds and planting instructions. The veg box kits are designed to encourage people to realise the benefits of growing their own fresh food, reducing their carbon footprint, and experiencing the health and therapeutic gains associated with food growing. 

Find out more

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Beyond The Garden - Dundee

The Maxwell Centre is a community centre and garden in Dundee. They successfully adapted their services and activities to continue to support 100s of members of the local community each week. Garden workers tended the garden keeping in touch with participants via phone and social media until August 2020 when it was safe to return. 

They set up a ‘Grow Dundee’ Facebook page and blog. They have also delivered ‘Grow At Home’ kits to families when they couldn't come to the garden. Now open to small groups they have moved some indoor activities outdoors like cooking workshops.

Find out more

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Viewpark Gardens Allotments Association

The Uddingston allotments stayed open during lockdown to facilitate daily exercise whilst ensuring strict safety rules were practised. During lockdown they had an inspired idea to make good use of allotments that couldn’t be used by plotholders who were shielding (with their permission of course). This allowed them to grow a mountain of veg for local foodbanks. They also held successful market days to allow locals to taste produce which increased footfall and generated lots of enquiries from locals about the allotments.

Find out more

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Remember to always check the most recent Scottish Government guidance and advice when planning activities and events outside.

Thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund for supporting work on Better outside - using our spaces more 

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