Other Growing Groups and Courses

*November 2024

Congratulations to Knocknagael . .  

. . in Inverness, for successfully  securing grant funding from the Scottish Land Fund. This will cover the costs of purchasing the land at the Smiddy Field. Best of luck with the next stage of negotiations!

*November 2024

Get your Community Growing report

by Toni Clarke, GYCG Coordinator  in HGFP December newsletter

With helping hands from the HGFP team, funding from Sustainable Food Places, and support from Highland Council's Community Food Growing Co-ordinator, this two-year programme brought together over 200 Highland growers.

Participants discovered new skills, knowledge, and connections, fostering and strengthening links within community food growing. These collective efforts continue to "feed" into the expansion of the good food movement across the Highlands.

In 2023, our Get Your Community Growing series brought 150 people together, from Lochaber to Nairn, Alness to Inverness, for 10 hands-on, practical workshops. Each workshop focused on topics suggested by community growing groups themselves. The programme was so well-received that we extended it into 2024 with four additional sessions in new communities.

What We Enjoyed Most

• Workshops were free of charge and accessible across the Highlands.
• Fantastic and knowledgeable tutors.
• Tips tailored to Highland growing: best varieties, timing, what grows well indoors/outdoors, and local seed/plant sources.
• Positive and engaging experiences.
• Meeting people with shared interests.

Details of all the workshops and suggested resources can be found on our website here.

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Congratulations to Knocknagael in Inverness, for successfully  securing grant funding from the Scottish Land Fund. This will cover the costs of purchasing the land at the Smiddy Field. Best of luck with the next stage of negotiations!

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2024 Gardening course / workshops at Black Isle Brewery market garden, Allangrange

Last workshop this season

• Fruit Tree Pruning - 5th December 2024

See below for booking

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2024 Workshops poster

Workshop list and summaries

Full details of each workshop and booking
https://www.blackislebrewery.com/workshops-and-events

The cost is £45.00 for individual workshops or £400 for the whole series.

View and download poster with all workshop dates

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March 2023

Knocknagael Community Growing Project

We are a community not-for-profit organisation established to take over the "Smiddy Field" - one of the fields at the Scottish Government-owned Knocknagael Farm on Essich Road in the south of Inverness - by an Asset Transfer Request. 

The aim of the Knocknagael Community Growing Project is to create, maintain and manage food growing activities, including allotments, for the benefit of the community.

Plans under consideration include a community garden, allotments, a community orchard, food growing areas, and outdoor walking paths.  We are in discussions with potential stakeholders including Education and Mental Wellbeing organisations.

With new housing going up all around Inverness, our aim is to create a Green Hub to get more people growing and enjoying local produce, while benefitting from a rural oasis in an increasingly urban landscape.  We recently submitted comments to the Highland Council's Inner Moray Firth Development Plan, which is currently under review.

​We have joined Community Land Scotland, the Community Woodlands Association, and been awarded a Stage 1 Grant by the Scottish Land Fund. 

Knocknagael website

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Highland Seedlings / Fearn Free Food Garden

Mairi MacPherson 

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'Pocket Orchards' in Wester Ross

Former TBI director John Wood and friends have been planting fruit trees in public spaces around the wester Ross villages since 2018.  

Pocket Orchards update 2022 - by John Wood

A ‘pocket orchard’ is a small group of community fruit trees which are accessible, where possible, to local residents with no, or minimum driving. The inspiration came from the community orchard in the garden of Cromarty Courthouse Museum, the wonderful gardens at Inverewe, and noticing some neglected apple trees in an overgrown corner of Poolewe.
.   .   .   .   

Full article

To find out more or get involved with the project, visit the group’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pocketorchards 

Or get in touch with them via email:  pocketorchards@gmail.com

Article link (HGFP)

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Elphin Green Bowl  online food market

The Green Bowl  is a group of crofters and non-crofters in Elphin and Knockan (NW Sutherland), led by Helen O'Keefe and Tessa Dorrian, working together to market, sell and distribute locally grown food to our community.  Seven producers sell a range of meat (beef, pork and mutton), eggs, honey, vegetables, fruit, herbs, bread and other baking.  Most sales are online, with weekly home deliveries to customers around Ullapool or pickups from Elphin.  In the summer, we also have a small farmshop, selling to tourists as well as residents.
 

Appletreeman

Andrew Lear,   Perthshire     https://plantsandapples.com/
 

Dunbar and District Local Good Food Alliance

MOO Food   Muir of Ord

(not up to date)

Background   October 2017