York House Community Gardens
It's Your Neighbourhood Group

​

Click here for our Explainer sheets:
what we do and how we do it

​

​

Since Covid, Stony In Bloom volunteers have taken over the maintenance of York House Community gardens to grow vegetables for the King’s Foodbank in Wolverton and the Fullers Slade Food Pantry.

​

 Brief History of York House Community Gardens

• 2011 York House Community Gardens opened, having gained a grant from Ecominds Charity, with the help of Alain Welch. He helped provide a plan for the proposed gardens.

• Community Groups were invited to take a plot – including a group of Mind clients; Stony in Bloom (which used the plot as a nursery for winter plants over the summer); Headstart; the WI;  and Youth Groups.

• In January 2014 SSIB volunteers joined York House volunteers to plant up the orchard as part of the DEFRA Big Tree Plant

• September 2014 Agreement between York House and Theresa Wedderburn’s BranchOutMK CIC (A Community Interest Group providing horticultural therapy for adults with autism and learning difficulties) to oversee the maintenance of the gardens.

• September 2014 York House gained sponsorship and volunteering from Mercedes to build the polytunnel, and in 2016 sponsorship and volunteering help from Mercedes to lay down non-slip paths, and in 2018 to redesign the raised bed at the front, and lay turf for a new lawn and astroturf for a basketball court at the back.

• In 2018 Government cuts meant the Mind group lost their organiser and left, and increasingly, BranchOutMK needed to focus on its larger premises out of Stony Stratford.

​

And then there was Covid!

With the onset of Covid in 2020, and Foodbanks seeing a huge rise in demand from people in need – and with most plots in York House Community Gardens lying idle - Stony in Bloom volunteers approached the Trustees to suggest that SSIB could grow vegetables there for the King’s Community Foodbank in Wolverton, and the Fullers Slade Food Pantry. The Trustees were happy to agree.

​

With the help of MK Community Foundation grants, since then we have been able to grow a wide variety of vegetables and fruit, and to deliver at least 2 large boxes of fruit and vegetables to the Foodbank from May to the end of October each year.

​

Each Wednesday a group of Stony in Bloom volunteers meets to sow seeds, plant, maintain the beds and harvest when the produce is ready. The wider SSIB volunteer group joins the smaller group when this is necessary, and in November 2023 there was a Sunday Volunteering Day bringing in a wider group of volunteers from the town to deal with bigger tasks.

​

SSIB has been following No-Dig gardening – mulching the plots with leaves, chippings and home-made compost – and we have found this method both sustainable and very productive. 

We have also been maintaining the flower-garden, sowing flowers such as cornflowers, ox-eye daisies, marigolds and scabious – encouraging bees and butterflies.

​

Awards

Since 2016 York House Community Gardens It’s Your Neighbourhood Group has gained each year an ‘Outstanding’ assessment.

​

In 2021, in the RHS National Finals of the In Bloom Competition, York House Community Gardens were joint winners of the ‘Nourishing the Community’ award.