A growing project with a big dream Seedlings began as a tiny seed of an idea after I'd setup and started to run Flookburgh Community Food Club during lockdown in May 2020. It's a community food waste project to feed hungry mouths and save good food from going to waste, with food provided by Fareshare. Our club has 40 members, around 120 in the combined households.
During the late spring and early summer of 2020 as my own first grown seedlings began to spread their leaves and take root, I shared my spares with food club members and the delight and conversations which sprang up were really encouraging - an idea started to germinate!
I'm a committee member of the local peninsula climate action group, PEAT (Peninsula Environmental Action Together) and in late summer 2020 I proposed we led a creative project to connect local people in growing their own food. We wrote a successful bid for funding from SLDC and Light Up Lives to support a 2021 project with a big dream ... to connect as many people as we could in growing and sharing seeds and seedlings around the peninsula, which over 450 people took part.
Seedlings began sharing organic seeds and organic compost in March 2021, asking people to: grow with us and help us achieve our dream to become known as the peninsula of home grown food. From Cartmel Fell to Humphrey Head and Haverthwaite to Ulpha PEAT* are sending out roots and nurturing shoots in all 9 parish areas of the Cartmel Peninsula and its surrounding peaty carbon-rich edgelands. We're sharing organic seeds (they're beautiful and free) to encourage groups of people to join together to sow, grow and share seedlings with families, friends & neighbours in their local area. We want to love local, promote green growth, get organised with organics, become curious about composting, get potting with paper, suss out sustainable ways and delight in no-dig tricks to help each other produce produce we are proud of.
Seedlings is a PEAT startup project for 2021 and is supported by funding from Light Up Lives, SLDC and PEAT members. Seedlings is an SLDC Local Climate Action project.