GROWING AT FRIEND

We began this project to improve life at FRIEND for everyone and as a way to demonstrate to others the importance of plant based living. We looked at different methods to improve our soil, grazing is a major part of our animals healthy diet, overtime this can become depleted. Improved land management and the implementation of regenerative agriculture systems e.g composting, seed sowing, rotation of grazing etc. All improve soil structure and keep the ground fertile overtime.

THE GROWING GREENER GARDEN PROJECT

Old poly tunnel frames were already onsite from before FRIEND became an animal sanctuary. We felt strongly that growing food here, reusing the old structures, just recovering them, we could clearly demonstrate what real food actually looks like.

In our society, traditional skills of food production have been lost. We import huge amounts of food , which travels hundreds , if not thousands, of miles before it reaches our plate. We felt strongly that to advocate for our animals we need to demonstrate viable alternatives. We envisioned people coming to see what real food “on the plate” actually looks like. It’s healthy, nutritious, fresh plant based food . We seek to show too, whom is clearly “off the plate”, which is, of course, our beautiful, sentient animals all living their best life here free from harm.

We have created the Growing Greener garden project. Where we seek to work guided by the ethics of Permaculture practice. People care, Fair share and Earth care.

We are growing a large range of vegetables and especially Kale, including perennniel Kales and other leafy vegetables all of which are extremely tasty and densely nutritious. Our animals all enjoy their diet being supplemented by healthy, freshly picked food, as do we. We hope that in the future our events will be catered using our own produce to really enhance the experience of being here amongst our residents. We believe that this is an elegant expression of ethical vegan values.

SEEDS

We have chosen to plant only heritage or heirloom seeds not F1 varieties. Heritage seeds can be saved, shared and sown again and again each time producing true to type vegetables. F1 varieties, used in mass food production systems, have to be bought each year as saved seeds will not run true to the parent plant. In this way food producers are reliant on big seed companies like Monsanto for production. Traditionally every gardener was a seeds saver, improving each years harvest by saving the best seed from the healthiest plant. Seed saving is an old and hugely valuable lost tradition, we would like to be part of the growing seed saving revolution. We aim to create a seed library and share our seeds and knowledge, encouraging others to grow too.

Globally we are facing food scarcity, change is desperately needed. Regaining these traditional skills and sharing locally is the way forward to empowering individuals and communities to act.

All this new growth creates new, improved levels of biodiversity from microbes in the soil to butterflies and other insects all benefiting the environment our animals thrive in. Overtime we intend to regenerate the entire 10 acres. We are going to do this by deepening the hedgerows, planting wildflowers, wild roses, hedgerow trees. We are in desperate need of more shade trees too. so we shall be planting more and more single large trees across the site, we have 400 saplings to plant which will greatly increase both the wildlife habitat and security onsite.

This is a very exciting time here and we are so excited to share this with you. It’s a huge project which will be ongoing for many years to come.