Grow your own with the help of green-fingered Laura
April 8, 2020
Staying at home can be a fruitful process…by growing fruit and vegetables in your garden, writes Laura Warren.
I work in the Communications and Engagement Team at the South Downs National Park Authority and my day job is running our events programme, so I had been eagerly looking forward to celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the National Park with a ranger roadshow visiting 10 town centres across the Easter break. But since the outbreak of coronavirus life has changed and I have instead been helping first time gardeners set up a vegetable patch in their back-garden, patio or even balcony. Not only is this a great way for people to get fresh produce but it feels like a positive, productive process in the face of less positive news around us.
Using the platform of our existing gardening blog my two sisters and I quickly switched our efforts from a single weekly blog post to a daily posting over a fortnight, taking people on a step by step guide on how to go about setting up a veg patch from scratch, the best things to grow, and how to go about this.
Our crash course was aimed at people who were doing this for the very first time, with reassuring messages about not worrying overmuch about being perfect – you can even grow a crop of potatoes in a Bag for Life or pea shoots on your kitchen windowsill if you don’t have a garden.
The friendly tone of the blog seemed to catch on quickly, and from an average page view of around 100 per day for our normal blog, views had spiralled to 2,500 views a day as our blog was shared online, and we were invited onto local radio to talk about our campaign.
Nationally, the trend seemed to be the same as on-line suppliers of seeds and compost reported a 10-fold increase in demand and dwindling stocks. So using our gardening contacts we were able to find out who still had supplies and also suggest ways in which seeds and plants could be swapped and shared using community networks.
We like to think that once we’re through this crisis, we may at least have introduced the benefits of growing your own to a whole new audience, cutting food miles, improving people’s health and wellbeing and a new appreciation of the wonderful local produce we normally enjoy in our National Park.
Please share the course with anyone who you think would find it helpful.
https://the3growbags.com/digthatcorona/grow-your-food/
