Wellington Community Food’s Harvest Celebration yesterday (Saturday) attracted families undeterred by wind and rain to learn more about a venture now coming to the end of its third growing season.
The 18 acres of land in the ‘Green Corridor’ between Wellington and Rockwell Green was broken for Wellington Community Food (WCF) in 2021 with the aim of providing local people with vegetables and fruit grown in the community in an environmentally healthy and sustainable way.
In addition, the project has educational aims and has hosted groups of children and young people from local schools to learn more about both the process of growing food and the environment.
The first harvest was produced from open fields in 2023 with weekly boxes of produce for 17 crop-share members.
Since then the project has grown visibly – as is evident now in the neat rows of vegetables – and in the number of people it reaches.
There are now 25 crop-share members who have boxes of fresh vegetables each week, either collected from Ruxtons in Wellington High Street or from the farm itself. There is also a team of regular voluteers who work on the land each week.
The recent addition of a polytunnel means that the growing season can be extended and vegetables such as tomatoes added to the range of foods grown. It is hoped a second polytunnel can be added this year.
The vision of the project team is expressed on the WCF website:
‘Our longer term ambition is to increase our growing area to 2 hectares; design and build an educational hub; set up a barn, poly tunnels, and off-grid power; create new wildlife habitats; diversify our crops and develop tree planting projects.
As we grow we will be able to employ more people and to host a wide range of groups and create space for new projects on the site. We estimate all this will require around £300,000 of further grants and investment support for the benefit of our local community and the natural environment, for now and for generations to come.’
This year’s Harvest Celebration may have suffered from bad weather but the aim of the project as a whole is unlikely to be blown off course.
