Grangetown Green Spaces job opportunity
December 2021
Grange Pavilion CIO are recruiting a Place Ranger to support a six month project on Grangetown's green spaces.
Connecting and Caring for Grangetown’s Green Spaces is a 6-month project starting in January 2022, funded by the UK Government UK Community Renewal Fund, and managed by the Grange Pavilion Charitable Incorporated Organisation. Edible Cardiff are one of a number of project partners.
The Grangetown Place Ranger will lead a pilot neighbourhood programme of assessing, enhancing and linking green and growing spaces throughout Grangetown, connecting residents, voluntary organisations, local businesses, Higher and Further Education partners and Cardiff Council to collaboratively improve, care for and expand green spaces in Grangetown in agreement with Cardiff Council and community groups.
Find out more or apply on the Grange Pavilion website before the closing date on 15th December.
New online community to help tackle climate change
November 2021
Our friends over at Green Squirrel recently launched The Something Club, an online community aimed at helping people to turn climate concern into action.
The community-led initiative aims to build skills, knowledge and confidence with events and support.
The monthly membership fee starts from £8/ month to allow fair pay to contributors. When someone signs up for a paid membership they gift a free membership to someone who would find the cost a barrier.
Free memberships are available to anyone who needs one. The club also offers free memberships directly to organisations working with communities whose voices are seldom heard in the environmental and social change movements.
Find out more on the Green Squirrel website.
Cardiff festival celebrates local and sustainable food
October 2021
We were delighted to work with our partners Food Cardiff as part of the Good Food Cardiff Autumn Festival from 16th – 24th October.
This year's festival aimed to inspire individuals and businesses to take action to help improve access to good food across the city. The festival encouraged Cardiff's communities to come together to shape their local food system.
Edible Cardiff collaborated with Food Cardiff and a local artist for the festival to champion healthy, sustainable food.
Artist Nathan Wyburn created a large-scale image using locally grown fruit and veg. Surplus veg was donated by community gardens and allotments across the city, as well as from Paul's Organic Veg at Roath Farmer's Market. Orchard Cardiff also contributed apples to the impressive piece, which took about three hours to make.
The fruit and veg was later distributed to community groups to use in cooking events and to the Food Pantry at ACE in Ely to make sure nothing was wasted.
Autumn gathering gets Cardiff growers behind key initiatives
September 2021
Our autumn gathering brought Cardiff's growers together to chat about an exciting new food initiative, an upcoming festival and pollinator-friendly gardens.
Hosted by the beautiful St Peter's Community Garden at Fairwater, the network had the chance to explore the gardens and learn about their history.
We revealed an exciting initiative with our partners Food Cardiff to supply five pantries across the city. Excess produce from community gardens and allotments will go towards the pantries to prevent food waste and give Cardiff residents better access to fresh, affordable, local food. We had a great discussion about the opportunities and barriers of this project and some excellent suggestions were made. We’ll be telling you more about this exciting project very soon!
Food Cardiff Coordinator Pearl Costello highlighted an opportunity to apply for a grant for the upcoming Food Cardiff Autumn Festival (16-24 October). Grants of between £50-£150 are available to host events or activities as part of the festival. The funds can be used for activity, equipment or staff costs. There is still time to register your activity or event as part of the Good Food Cardiff Autumn Festival from 16th – 24th October, find out more on the Food Cardiff website.
The network also got buzzing about the Urban Buzz Pollinator Pledge run by the Giving Nature a Home in Cardiff project. The project is funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and is delivered in partnership with RSPB Cymru, Cardiff Council and Buglife Cymru. It provides support for community groups and organisations who want to help pollinators in the city. The mission is for Cardiff to become a pollinator-friendly city and gain the Welsh Government’s ‘Bee Friendly’ Status. Find out more and take the Urban Buzz Pollinator Pledge.
Edible Cardiff Coordinator Lisa Williams said: "An important part of every Edible Cardiff gathering is the chance for people to ask for or offer to help. It was great to see people connecting and helping each other out. Thank you to everyone who attended and we look forward to seeing you again very soon!"
Spotlight on soil health at Edible Cardiff summer event
June 2021
Edible Cardiff's first face-to-face event of 2021 saw growers get together to learn more about organic and permaculture practices.
Held at Coed Hills Forest Garden in Cowbridge on Saturday 19th June 2021, the event was well attended by people from growing groups across Cardiff.
Stephen Watts, who runs the Forest Garden growing project at Coed, led a tour of the beautiful gardens. The group learnt about the different organic and permaculture practices used to manage the site including 'swales', a way of holding excess rainwater and gradually filtering it through plants and soil back into the area.
After a lunch made with fresh produce from the garden, the group got to work creating a two metre high compost heap with expert instruction from Stephen. The compost will be put to good use in the garden, bringing extra nutrients back to the soil.
The event closed with a relaxing and energising movement, meditation and mindfulness session from Kerry Sanson-Regan.
Lisa Williams from Edible Cardiff, said: "Coed Hills really is the most peaceful and inspiring place and everyone thoroughly enjoyed the day. We had some interesting conversations and lots of new connections were made. Look out for our next gathering later this year!"
Growing Hope & our response to the COVID-19 pandemic
Growing Hope 2020
The coronavirus pandemic may have disrupted normal food supply chains but a city-wide project helped thousands of Cardiff families grow their own food at home. Nearly 14,000 plants, seeds and growing kits were distributed to families across Cardiff during lockdown as part of the Sustainable Food City project, which encouraged people to grow their own fruit and vegetables at home.
A team of 70 volunteers from 16 community groups came together to help grow and hand out plants and seeds to more than 3,000 households, care homes, and foodbanks. They are also taught people how to their own food with online classes. Food Cardiff, Social Farms and Gardens Wales Edible Cardiff, Cardiff Salad Garden, Global Gardens, Green Squirrel and EggSeeds were among the groups involved. Watch our #GrowingHope video below and read more HERE.
We are running the Growing Hope campaign again in 2021 - contact us for more information. Or keep an eye on our social media pages for updates.
Growing More Food in Lockdown in Cardiff
Working in collaboration with food emergency response networks, Food Cardiff and Edible Cardiff are encouraging residents to grow their own vegetables. A team of 70 volunteers across 16 projects distributed around 14,000 plants, seeds and growing kits to over 3,000 households and more than 100 people joined online growing classes. Read more HERE.
1,000 people/ homes received a Growing Hope growing kit
(L-R) Lisa Williams of Social Farms and Gardens, Ginny Head, Bute Park Nurseries, Poppy Nicol of Global Gardens Project, Chay Sanders, a nursery supervisor at Bute Park Nurseries and Sam Holt of EggSeeds are some of the volunteers that have come together for the project
Lisa Williams from Social Farms and Gardens, which has distributed 1,000 growing kits in Cardiff council’s food parcels, foodbank parcels, and to other community groups. The kits include everything people need to grow salads and herbs on their window sills
1,200 packets of seeds were sent out through local community groups and Cardiff food bank
