Dear Friends As we near a new growing season, here at Grow Sheffield we are working towards the completion of our programmes funded by the Big Lottery Local Food Fund, and putting plans in place for the future. Through 2014, we will continue our work on the Sheffield on a Plate project supporting students to engage with community food activities (more on this below), and we will be developing our existing projects: supporting community food growing groups and activities across the city, co-ordinating neighbourhood Abundance groups and fruit harvesting activities, highlighting food organisations offering independent, local and fair food in Sheffield through the Sheffield Food Network, and running events, workshops and creative activities around food growing and harvesting.
 Sheffield on a Plate
Grow Sheffield are involved in a partnership project with Sheffeld University Students Union, Sheffield Hallam Students Union, Sheffeld College and Fareshare Yorkshire. Sheffield on a Plate gets students to engage with food and sustainability: food growing, buying local and ethical food, cooking skills and minimising food waste, and food poverty issues. We would like to encourage students to get involved with as many community food growing, harvesting and other activities as possible all over the city, so If you are running one-off or regular food growing activities, and you’re interested in getting more students involved as volunteers and participants, then please get in touch – email sfn.
Common Ground
Common Ground Community Garden is in Nether Edge (where St Peter’s church used to be on Machon Bank) and has been going for just over a year now. Morwenna from the group gave us this report on progress and latest news:
As we embark upon our second growing season we’re keen to encourage people from the local community to pop down and have a go at growing something this year! We’re going to be part of Sheffield on a Plate (www.sheffieldonaplate.com) and a world record attempt aiming to create the world’s biggest sustainable stew, which could feed over 5000 people.
We’re having a big event on 1st March, 2pm-5pm in partnership with Nether Edge Neighbourhood Group (NENG). It’s a party for all the community and last year it was a big hit! Common Ground Hall needs as much support as it can get at the moment so please pop down, learn about the hall, the garden and the local community and see how you can get involved.
We meet every Saturday morning, 10am-12noon, new volunteers and anyone interested in finding out more can come along. And get the latest updates at our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/CommonGroundAbbeydale.
Aquaponics Pilot Project
Sean and Cies-jan are keen to set up an aquaponics project in Sheffield and are looking for a plot of land to set up a polytunnel (20ft x 36ft) to begin a pilot project. Aquaponics is a food production system that combines conventional aquaculture, (raising aquatic animals such as snails, fish, crayfish or prawns in tanks), with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. In an aquaponic system, water from an aquaculture system is fed to a hydroponic system where the by-products are broken down by nitrogen-fixing bacteria into nitrates and nitrites, which the plants use as nutrients. The water is then recirculated back to the aquaculture system. If you have a suitable patch of land on a community garden or similar place and would be interested in this pilot project and having some tasty greens and herbs and succulent fish produced on your land, then please get in touch with Sean Kettle, email seankettle
If you would like to share news and information about your community food growing activities through Grow Sheffield’s newsletter, website, Facebook and Twitter, then get in touch. Email your event or activity details to grow
Upcoming Events
Sunday 16th February: Pruning workshop, Cat Lane (house next to Cattery), 11am – 3pm
Now is the traditional time of year to prune apple and pear trees, helping to maintain health and promote growth. We’ll be teaching people skills for pruning fruit trees and undertaking pruning of apple and pear trees on site.
http://growsheffield.com/event/pruning-workshop/
Saturday 22nd February: Sheffield Seed Swap, Heeley City Farm, Richards Rd, 12 – 3pm
It’s our 3rd year in a row of February seed swapping at Heeley City Farm. Everyone is welcome – bring home-saved seeds to swap if you have them but don’t worry if you don’t – there’ll be plenty of seeds available for donation, including a massive assortment of weird and wonderful seeds from the seed bank of the late Richard Clare.
http://growsheffield.com/event/sheffield-seed-swap/
Tuesday 25th February: Gleadless tree planting, 9:30am
We’ll be planting some fruit trees on a site in Gleadless with Gleadless Valley Community Action Group. Please email abundance if you’d like to know more/get involved.
http://growsheffield.com/event/tree-planting-in-gleadless-valley/
Tuesday 4th March: Lowe’s Community Garden Work-blitz, Lowe’s Garden, next to Lowe’s decorating shop, Abbeydale Rd. 11am-2pm.
Lowe’s Community Garden is a small forest garden planted over 3 years ago by Sheffield City Council, Abundance and local residents. This session is one of the seasonal work sessions Abundance currently runs to maintain the site. We really need your help in order to keep access open to the site and to make more people aware of it.
http://growsheffield.com/event/lowes-community-garden-work-blitz/
More information and booking details available for each event by following the web links. If you would like to publicise your event through the Grow Sheffield mailing list, send the details to grow
Until next time, happy growing!
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north east sheffield 
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