Growing to Gathering
Growing to Gathering is a brand new project in its exciting development phase, with plans being made and partnerships formed.
This project aims to engage with groups and individuals in our community with growing their own food in shared spaces or their own homes including a local community gardening space.
It also aims to educate local people on what foods are healthy and nutritious (and what are not) and to initiate discussions about the negative aspects of foods which are Ultra Processed.
The project aims to bring people together to sow, grow, harvest, prepare and eat food in a ‘field to fork’ approach.
It is our intention to initiate co-hosted and regular community meals starting in 2026, with ingredients generated from the project in partnership with local community organisations for the benefit of those in need in our community.
One such partnership is with Crich Junior School, who have a fantastic garden which has had a long history of food production for by and with the school community.
Head Teacher, Chris Orridge is very keen to make the garden great again and as such invited us and Crich and Fritchley Open Gardens group to found ‘Friends of Crich Junior School Garden’ (FoCJSG) to help the school with this aim.
We had our very first working party on 31 October, when we created a three-bay composting system, trimmed hedges, pruned bushes and generally weeded and tidied the growing area of the garden.
It was a very successful morning, led by permaculture expert Gid Sutton alongside several of the newly formed FoCJSG group and staff from the school.
Creative Agent Clare Limb went along to the school on a Wednesday afternoon to see what the children thought of our efforts and to find out what their vision was for the garden.
Clare found out a lot from speaking with the children and was able to help the school put together a ‘Green Skills’ proposal, which was submitted to Let’s Go Zero’s OVO Foundation Nature Prize.
If you would like to get involved in either our Growing to Gathering project or FoCJSG then email us on transitioncrich@gmail.com.
