York House Veg Project

The project to grow vegetables for the King’s Foodbank in Wolverton and the Fullers Slade Food Pantry – which was started towards the beginning of the pandemic – has grown from strength to strength – and we now have even more beds to cultivate. With the help of an MK Community Foundation Grant at the beginning of 2022 (picture of logo needed), we were able to buy lots more peat free compost, manure, and other gardening items to make our project more successful, though up until autumn 2021 we were still harvesting substantial amounts of fruit and vegetables each week to donate. This year we have planted potatoes, French and runner beans, courgettes, squash, pumpkins, lettuce, beetroot, spinach and leeks – and the tomato plants are flourishing in the polytunnel. Already we have been able to donate lots of rhubarb, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, early potatoes and leeks to Foodbank, and before long there will be much more. The fruit trees in the orchard are laden with little apples, which should be ready later in the summer. Once again, SSIB volunteers have formed a watering rota, and we need lots of work parties to keep the bindweed and brambles from taking over. We’re grateful to have help from our D of E volunteers Edward and Ethan, and Edward’s father, Mark in this.

We are planning to introduce No Dig Gardening on some of the new beds we now maintain there, and Stephanie is guiding us on this