Lomond Community Gardens and Allotment Association – Refurbishment of allotments
Lomond Community Gardens and Allotment Association used their 2024 Seed Grant to refurbish their allotments. The project involved building new raised beds and planting more trees and vegetables.
“Having been operating for 10 years we need to do some refurbishment of our plots and build more raised beds to involve more people. We find that as people age or develop disabilities they like to switch to raised beds for easier access, and children can grow their own veg in a smaller bed. The wet weather shelter on our site was upcycled from building site waste and we need to put a marine ply skin on one elevation rather than chipboard. We’d also like to plant more fruit trees. Our membership fees per plot are £30 per annum, so we seek grant funding for developments. We have members from SIMD 20 areas in our community. We run an open day in late summer where we demonstrate growing and donate surplus food to the community. We work with the local eco-congregation to spread the word on reducing food miles and living sustainably.”
“Our project helped the community become more aware of climate change and its effects as the group now have a better understanding of the adaptations you can make to cope with increased rainfall. We helped our group come up with their own solutions to climate change, and many members made suggestions on changes we could make to our allotments, and how we use the space.”
“When we host our open days in the summer, we will be able to observe the impact our project has had on giving communities a stronger voice in advocating for climate action Our project helped to show the importance of local food growing, and we hope showed that there can be a shift towards a more sustainable future.”
“One highlight of our project was being able to purchase the new compost from Caledonian Horticultural. This compost is manufactured in Scotland from ‘brown’ bins and seaweed and helped us support local climate initiatives. We chose heritage varieties of apples to plant on site to help increase the biodiversity.”
“We have sleepers on site to build more raised beds, which will be completed by West Dumbarton Community Payback team. The compost purchased with the grant will give some of the 6 people on our waiting list the opportunity to start growing. As we only have 18 plots, we have had no turnover of members this growing season.”
To find out more about Lomond Community Gardens and Allotment Association, please visit their page here.
