A rainbow of active hope in Ceredigion: bringing the community together
Ruth Davies is a farmer with a strong ethic of creativity and practical, traditional land-use skills. She and a small group of local people began a couple of years ago by looking at ways to open up opportunities on their farm in Llechryd.
They began with the idea of leasing a small area for allotment style plots and creating a sensory garden for people with special support needs. Since then, the project has grown on many levels: as one idea led to another, an ambitious vision has emerged.
The experiment with the community plots revealed limits and possibilities, leading to the idea to considerably increase the food growing potential and infrastructure, whilst dovetailing this with mental health outcomes. Polytunnels, a pond, an outdoor classroom, an orchard and a sensory garden are some of the impressive changes now in place at Gardd Enfys. They have cultivated local links with schools, an Alzheimer and Parkinsons group, and a group for parents and carers of people with learning disabilities.
Gardd Enfys approached Egin keen to scale up and make more productive use of the polytunnels and other newly established food growing practices. In particular, they were keen to have mentoring around making the salad gardens productive all year round and of becoming an effective source of local food supply.
Up to 30% of our energy footprint is attributed to food, though nearly all of this is the transport, packaging and waste of the global food system, rather than the growing. By supplying good quality fruit and vegetables, large gains are to be had in reducing energy use and pollution that comes from unsustainable industrial agriculture in fragile ecosystems around the world.
Although originally the project was in response to social needs, it became clear to them that more local food through a box scheme could contribute to sustainability whilst still improving people’s health and social wellbeing.
Their facilitator, Jasmine Dale, was able to find links to heritage seed programmes and other Wales-wide networks that could support the project. Jasmine also matched Gardd Enfys up with a local irrigation expert from Cwm Arian and allocated an Egin mentor, Louise Cartwright, who had the exact experience Ruth was looking for.
Louise has been a farm manager, volunteer coordinator and smallholder and she worked with the group to devise an all year-round salad growing plan, with a valuable emphasis on varieties that are easy to grow, beneficial for insects and suitable to this climate.
Salads growing well in the polytunnel, ready to eat.
Together they identified local markets, including Coedmor Camping and restaurants in the Cardigan area and worked on other areas where Louise’s experience could benefit.
This included low-tech water harvesting techniques from the on-site polytunnels; ways of using Bio-fertilisers to increase yields and promote soil health, and top tips for slug management. The mentor also supplied excellent signposting to sustainable suppliers of seed, natural fertilisers and accessible growing guides, spending a further day with them working out the project practicalities of marketing, in particular sourcing sustainable packaging for the harvested crops.
This led to comprehensive plan looking at developing the Gardd Enfys story to attract customers; finding places to sell as well as the practicalities of delivering veg boxes; and an overview of marketing standards. Louise wrote up handy check lists in response to all she and the group discussed following site visits.
The combination of a committed group with active participants and an experienced mentor who had walked the same path over many years and could work in response to what she observed and heard has supported a considerable resource for the local area.
Slug remedies for veg gardens made by the project following Louise the mentor’s visit.
Ruth Davies of Gardd Enfys says:
“Louise our mentor was brilliant and gave great support on how to diversify our activities to reduce food miles. It’s really useful to talk things through with someone who has relevant experience and bounce ideas off each other. EGIN helped us make new links in the area too, which is really important to us, joining networks together.”
Gardd Enfys is growing every day, and through engaging with sustainability concerns is now involved in Local Food Partnerships and a potential pilot scheme to be one of several local growers supplying schools and hospitals in the region with organic vegetables.
Gardd Enfys has even more plans afoot now and is spurred on by the visible progress daily of the people who enjoy the project and the tangible outcomes it is bringing to their quality of life. They are keen to further catalyse local food sustainability and resilience through connecting with other projects in the region and minimise competition between small growers accessing the same markets. Anyone who has an interest in this is welcome to get in touch with Ruth Davies at Gardd Enfys.
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