Growing Stories - Childwall Church Acre

Each month we take a trip to one of the network’s amazing growing projects to find out a bit more about the plot, the people, the harvests and the hopes. This week we chat with the gardeners at Childwall Church Acre, a fledgling project which is growing fast and engaging the whole community.

“When you’re up close to the earth planting or harvesting that’s when the miracle of gardening is most experienced.”

What is your growing project called? And where can we find you?

Church Acre – aside All Saints Church Childwall L16 0JW

Tell us a bit about your project… what do you grow, how many people are involved, who uses your produce?

A collaboration between The Friends of Childwall Woods and Fields, All Saints Church Childwall and Childwall Abbey School; the Church Acre is a community growing space located next to the churchyard.

A portion of the much overgrown and long unused field has been transformed and now has fruit trees planted, an apiary enclosure, compost bins, and raised beds for growing vegetables. This fantastic facility remains embryonic with more work to do. It is however, already providing opportunities for the 6th form pupils from Childwall Abbey School to learn basic joinery and construction techniques and get food from Plot to Plate without the air miles or the additives. 

This environmentally positive initiative holds huge potential for the wider community to get involved, save some pennies, and contribute to saving the planet at the same time.

More than 30 individuals have contributed to the project from community volunteers both local and from quite some distance, to additional needs students from the local school.

We grow all sorts…Potatoes, onions, beans, strawberries, rhubarb…

Produce is distributed amongst the volunteers and passed to the school so that the students can learn to cook with what they’ve grown.

“Ensure there is enough raw enthusiasm from as many local people as possible ”

How long has your project been running?

Just over a year.

What activities do your volunteers and workers take part in?

Growing and all that’s involved from the loading of the beds with compost, weeding, planting, watering (sometimes), harvesting and distributing the produce. Joinery! Bee Keeping! How to enjoy hard work!

What would be your 3 top tips for starting a food growing project?

• Ensure there is enough raw enthusiasm from as many as possible hands-on individuals ideally within committed local organisations.  

• Identify a real need that the initiative addresses e.g. enhancing employability prospects of local students, sixth form pupils, supporting well-being be it physical or mental, the support package that goes with each of these is different and the initiative needs to be designed around its purpose.

• Maintain the momentum. Keep the initiative itself growing through publicity, positive change, ideas, and collaboration. Ensure every one of your volunteers are thanked personally for their contribution. Maintain a positive and enthusiastic vision until it develops a momentum of its own!

What is your favourite food to grow?

Spuds! It’s great when you pull them out of the ground and there’s heaps of good size spuds. Getting your hands dirty and smelling the earth are added benefits. Who doesn’t like spuds – as chips, mash, rosti, etc. the no waste principle is to grow what you or others connected to the project will eat.

And what garden tool could you not live without?

A plain old garden trowel. It’s a mini spade at one end and a dipper at the other. As much as I like the physical shifting of tons of topsoil or compost, it’s when you’re up close to the earth planting or harvesting that the miracle of gardening is most experienced.

What is the most exciting thing about community food growing? It’s the enthusiasm of our student volunteers for doing something so creative that requires real skills and is a real project outside of the school walls. Our students have additional needs (ASD) – people who for too long have had poor employability prospects. They are learning joinery, basic construction, horticulture, bee keeping and how to feed themselves on a lower budget.

Tell us what’s next for your project? What are your plans and dreams for the future?

Subject to funding… or Father Christmas… a lockable shipping container 8ft x 20ft and a 16ft by 32ft polytunnel please, so that we can grow from seed and start accredited courses for the students.

Where can we find out more about your project?

Email us at fcwfinfo@gmail.com