Lotus Brook Case Study

Ten local community groups were given straw bales and had to design a growing area out of them and plant vegetables and flowers in them. The plants will be looked after and eventually harvested later in the year and the food passed to local groups and foodbanks. The straw bales will be composted down and any leftover crops planted in the garden. Children and young people were very involved in the projects with the aim being that they gain new skills, learn more about growing their own food and improve their local environment. 

We caught up with the Director of Lotus Brook, Christine Leung, to find out how the day went:

"So how does your garden grow if it's a former school playground covered in tarmac? Ten South Sefton community groups came together on a sunny Thursday in June to design and create straw bale structures, and pile soil on top before sowing seeds and firming in plants for Bootle's second ever straw bale growing competition. The idea was conceived over a cup of tea between Incredible Farm founder Nick Green, Cate Murphy of Regenerus and Christine Leung of Lotus Brook. Our pilot year in 2015 went brilliantly so we had to try and organise another."

"Thanks to Hill Dickinson who funded the event day, we brought together 10 groups to take part in something fun and unusual. The message that we're trying to tell people is that you can still grow food on concrete if you have a small urban site. Ward council funds will enable me to run educational workshops over summer to maintain the bales, and more importantly, to be able to harvest food off them," say Christine Leung. The bales will stay in situ at Safe Regeneration in Bootle until October when they will be heaped together to rot down to make community compost. Food harvested in the meantime will be donated to the Foodbank."

We would like to congratulate Lotus Brook and all the community groups involved with the project.

Keep up the fansatic work you are doing in growing stronger communtiies!