Background

How it all started

Growing Communities was set up by a group of friends including Julie Brown, (now the director of Growing Communities) more than thirteen years ago.  Growing Communities started life as a Community Supported Agriculture scheme which linked members up with a farm in Buckinghamshire.  The box scheme started in 1993 with only 30 families signed up to it.  "These were the early days of box schemes," says Julie, "and it really felt very subversive to be unloading vegetables fresh from the farm at 6am right under the nose of the local Sainsburys!"  At the same time Julie began organising weekend working trips to the farms supplying the box scheme so members could help with the watercress harvest, plant plum trees and pick caterpillars off brussels sprouts.

Inspiring development. The success of these trips helped inspire Julie to find sites in Hackney which could be transformed into flourishing organic vegetable plots with the aid of a grower and volunteers. "I started looking for land in Hackney by cycling around and peering over hedges and under fences". In 1997 Growing Communities got our first site:  a tiny piece of land by the butterfly tunnel in Clissold Park. This was followed by the Oaktree site later in 1997 and then the Springfield site.  Our most recent site at Allens Gardens on Bethune Road, Stoke Newington was secured after we lost the Oaktree site to a housing development.

Not just about vegetables! "We've always wanted to be about more than just veg", so in 2003 Growing Communities set up the UK's first all-organic farmers' market.  Initially the market took place next to Growing Communities' office at the Old Fire Station - but a need for more space thanks to the market's popularity led to a move to William Patten School on Stoke Newington Church Street in April 2005.

We have 12 Key Principles that we apply to the trading we carry out in order to make it sustainable. The document can be downloaded here. (Word doc)

growcomm@growingcommunities.org