The “Planting Up” community garden project was formed by a few passionate people from Transition Town Milton Keynes (MK) in summer 2017.
Our project group consists of people from all walks of life who are the driving force of our project.
It’s our volunteers’ dedicated time and effort that enables us to create, maintain and promote fantastic community spaces. Our first site, and original base-camp, at Westbury Arts Centre shows us how lots of elbow-grease coupled with enthusiasm and community-spirit can transform a grassy pasture into a productive, permaculture paradise.
Our Mission
In 2017 our original aim was to establish a community garden at Westbury Arts Centre (WAC) that uses permaculture principles to improve the Arts Centre’s outdoor space to better serve the local community and the natural environment.
From 2019 we extended our projects beyond WAC and our mission changed to one that supports the creation of more sustainable community gardens across Milton Keynes (MK).
Our mission is now to encourage, educate and empower people to create local sustainably run community gardens that connect them to the natural world and each other in growing food, enhancing wildlife habitats and cultivating their community.
In it’s simplest form, our project connects with the Transition movement by teaching us how we can all grow our own food; which can not only save you money, keep you fit and give you a healthier lifestyle, but that also allows you to know exactly what you are eating and how to produce it in an environmentally-friendly way.
Permaculture
Our focus on permaculture means that we recycle, reuse materials, and keep to local resources; saving money, protecting the environment and helping to reduce our carbon footprint.
We’re focused on striking a balance between PEOPLE, ENVIRONMENT and EQUITY (where we all have a FAIR SHARE). This sociable and environmentally-friendly way of gardening and working together with our local community is inclusive and helps us to reduce our food miles, produce less waste and grow plants/trees that help to sustain us.
We follow organic permaculture principles in the garden that mean we apply “no-dig” gardening methods as we work together to grow organic produce we can eat and learn about, whilst also creating biodiverse natural habitats that encourage richly biodiverse wildlife in the garden.
This way of working with nature aims to maintain a healthy balance between pests and beneficial insects so that the garden is naturally maintained as much as possible (such as by slug eating reptiles like frogs, toads and slowworms etc,) meaning that there is less work for us to do to maintain it in the longer-term.
Project Sponsors
This work was originally supported by funding from MK Community Foundation in 2018.
Westbury Arts Centre (WAC) is a registered charity whose aim is to promote, maintain, improve and advance education and appreciation of the arts in all forms among the people of Milton Keynes and the surrounding area.
In addition to delivering a high quality Events Programme throughout the year for the public to come and enjoy exhibitions and events, and get involved in a range of creative workshops, the Centre provides permanent and temporary studio spaces, as well as rooms and exhibition spaces for hire. As far as this project is concerned, WAC wants to encourage more visitors to the Centre for the local community to benefit from it as a recognised social space for their volunteers as well as an educational and wildlife conservation site of interest.
Transition Town Milton Keynes (TTMK) is a group of local people who connect and support individuals and community groups in building strong and resilient communities in our local area to help us take local action for low carbon living. The group aims to promote practical local action which will help the people of Milton Keynes to be more environmentally sustainable and self sufficient in their lifestyle. As far as this project is concerned, TTMK wants to encourage more people to grow some of the food they eat and educate us to be more resourceful in how we use and manage waste by applying permaculture’s “recycling” principles.
Our project can help you lead a happier, healthier and more eco-friendly lifestyle as you get stuck in, learn new skills and make new friends volunteering on a meaningful project that will make a positive difference to your local community, Milton Keynes and in tackling climate change.
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