Visit to Growing Well, Low Sizergh
Alison, Angela, Ellie, Janet, Jeni & Sanjive
We were expertly guided round the growing space by project manager Sinead who showed us from the top field and compost area, down past the polytunnels. It is a 6 acre site that has been growing for nearly 20 years and is fully organic. They have a 100 place veg box scheme and have just opened a 2nd site at Tebay.
Growing Well is a wonderful mental health project, you can be referred by a GP or social services and you can also self-refer. People sign up for one day a week for a year and the Growing Well team support people to learn new skills and gently challenge themselves and there's a check-in with support every 6 weeks. On Fridays they have a volunteer helper day and anyone can turn up to help. We thought the whole thing was fabulous.
A few quick notes from the visit:
- Source seeds from Tamar Organics and others
- Can take a few non-organic salad seeds and still maintain organic label
- Partly mechanised; 4 wheel tractor, 2 wheel tractor
- Use seed/soil blocking with old 'For Sale' boards
- Green manure - rye, (pea)
- Rotations x 5 x 4
- Yurts are amazing, interconnected social and working spaces to drink tea, chat, make plans and eat together
- Fully fitted commercial kitchen for cooking food grown on site
- Had visit from Hairy Bikers (we saw the evidence in the sign!)
- Boot room - rows of steel toecaps for everyone to wear
- Composting toilets - invaluable during the hard frosts we had - would have had to close if they didn't have them. Built in straw bale space.
- Xmas was fun and mass cake making (we missed trying the last of the cake by 2 days)
- Don't have solar, don't companion plant with flowers - just with veg/salads
https://www.growingwell.co.uk/
https://photos.app.goo.gl/RZosVHChdjRc9s9f6
