Shaftesbury Home Grown Articles

Home grown answers from Shaftesbury Home Grown

The current turmoil in the world economy and the environmental crisis highlight that there has rarely been a more sensible time to grow your own food.

Some say that world supplies of petroleum oil are running out. The effects on us all would be massive and radical. Nowhere would this be harder hitting than in the availability of food.

Think about the reality of no lorries delivering exotic and out of season groceries to our town. Up here on this elevated outcrop we could, like gorillas in the mist, be left quite isolated.

Shaftesbury Home Grown is a collective of like-minded individuals who want to address potential future problems now so that Shaftesbury can become self reliant on food produced sustainably from within the community.

We have access to Jonathan's Field, opposite Umbers Hill, and are exploring ways to make the home grown dream a reality. The land owner, has granted us a five year window to make Shaftesbury Home Grown a viable enterprise. He does not want heavy machinery used to smooth out humps, bumps and hollows, however. We've agreed to work the field in a sympathetic manner akin to a 4.5 acre pottager, comprising imaginatively designed beds of different shapes and sizes for aesthetic as well as culinary delights.

An application for financial funding has been made to Unltd for equipment (including fencing), seeds and the cost of services which Shaftesbury Home Grown will need. Unltd is a charity which supports people with drive, vision, passion and commitment to change the world for the better.