A Liverpool group is encouraging people to grow food to combat the cost of living and increased use of food banks.
Urban Grow Liverpool (UGL) was formed in 2022 by Victoria Robinson and Adam Dexter to get people to grow food to help reduce food and plastic waste. They make planters and provide free start-up gardening packs.
Packs contain compost and equipment; trowels, forks, gloves and more. UGL wants to set people up so they don’t have to buy more than a packet of seeds.
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Victoria told the ECHO: "We run gardening and recycling themed workshops and began a network of green giving walls stoked with plants for people to take to make growing more accessible. We're hoping to launch details of our workshops beginning with planter making in February and March”.
They aim to increase workshops throughout the year for people within the Liverpool City Region (LCR). At present they mainly focus on Toxteth, Tuebrook and Dingle, but anyone within the LCR can apply for a planter pack and attend workshops.
As a new CIC funding pots are not easy to access and are time consuming. Thanks to a small grant from Liverpool Soup, a fundraising event where four successful applicants get the opportunity to pitch their ideas at the Leaf Cafe in the City Centre.
Money raised via public donations is awarded to the winning pitch voted for by the attendees, who all get a bowl of soup. A smaller donation goes to the other three applicants.
UGL was fortunate to win last November and Victoria said: "Liverpool Soup funding is really helpful because it allows you to be creative due to being no-strings attached and we were so shocked to win. The pitch itself was straight from the heart and we’re glad our values came through.
“We not only won but came away with a lot of useful links and knowledge about other great startups expanding our support network".
Adam added: "In our planters you could feasibly grow a courgette or cucumber and a tomato plant as well as attach bottles to the sides to grow salads or small items. We always encourage high yield plants and one courgette plant, if looked after, can provide up to four courgettes per week.
"A three pack is £1.29. Another example would be cut-and-come again salad plants which would save £1 a bag of salad every few days. We consider our unique selling point is we have a speciality in urban growing and we specifically grow plug plants that are high yield or are selected depending on their full growing size".
UGL don’t have premises and are always on the lookout for, preferably, free venues to host workshops and for cheap storage spaces. They hope to obtain a gazebo allowing them flexibility in workshop venues.
Victoria said: "We encourage anyone to utilise any growing space, from one windowsill in a flat to any sized garden space. We hope to inspire and educate on how to do this."
For information visit Instagram @Urban_Grow_Liverpool HERE
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