Grow Greener with Garthdee Field Allotments Association

Category: News Page 10 of 82

SCOTMID Community Orchard Bid

SCOTMID COMMUNITY ORCHARD is an environmental and wellbeing initiative that will benefit almost 200 communities across Scotland.
The Society is looking for a group close to each of its stores to purchase and plant at least five fruit-bearing trees or bushes, the plants or trees will be funded by Scotmid.

We are pleased to announce that GFAA has submitted a bid for five fruit trees to be used to extend out existing Community Orchard within our Communal Garden.

Thanks go to Rebecca Dunn from CFINE for alerting us to this opportunity and to Ron (Plot 65A) who built and submitted our bid.

Applications are still open and may be submitted here:

UPDATE: Success!

IYN Award 2022

Phil (Plot 57) attended an It’s Your Neighbourhood Celebration hosted by Aberdeen City Council this week and was presented with our top ranking, “Outstanding with Distinction” Award Certificate for our 2022 entry.

It was smashing to see us maintain our ranking for another year and thanks go to all of the plotters, volunteers and friends of Garthdee Field Allotments whose efforts around the site and on plots made it possible.

Our community projects are always recognised as our strength on these occasions and we very much hope our Fresh Food for Frugal Families project will win funding in the current Scottish Government’s Just Transition Scheme. If you haven’t voted for us here’s the link and remember, everyone in the household can vote! Voting closes tomorrow at noon – so please vote now!

Fresh Food for Frugal Families

Our Project

In the Fresh Food for Frugal Families Project, local primary pupils will work with volunteers to grow and cook their own vegetables, providing tasty, inexpensive, and healthy meals for themselves and their families. While they do so, they will develop thrifty habits and learn the importance of acting local to protect nature and the environment from Climate Change.

Together we will:

  • Experience the joys of working in teams outdoors in the fresh air
  • Grow and cook food to share with our families and local residents via TAMS
  • Learn how tasty, inexpensive and healthy home-grown food can be
  • Understand why locally grown food is better for our environment
  • explore practical ways of protecting the environment while cutting carbon
  • Learn to feed and conserve the soil to grow healthy disease-free vegetables
  • Create growing spaces safe for all sorts of bugs and beasties
  • Find out how green growing can cut emissions and protect against Climate Change
  • Recycle, repurpose and compost materials to cut down landfill waste.

How the funding will help

The Just Transition funding will allow us to enhance the experiences we offer our volunteers and school visitors by providing equipment to cut our carbon emissions and two outdoor learning spaces: a greenhouse laboratory and a solar powered workshop and classroom. These new spaces will also allow visits to go ahead in inclement weather.

Pupils will attend one afternoon a week over the full 10 week summer term. Our Volunteer Squad attends three times a week, 11 months of the year.

Caught in the act

A wee reminder that we can’t be too careful about site security. Luckily, we managed to put a stop to this daylight robbery before the culprit made away with this rather nice greenhouse.

Obviously the greenhouse was arriving not leaving and will soon be available if any plotter is interested. It was kindly donated to us by a local resident. Watch this space or your email boxes for more information if it’s of interest. At six foot square it would sit nicely on a whole or half plot.

New Dobies (2023) Code and Update

GFAA continues to be affiliated to The Dobies Gardening Group Scheme. This means our plotters and volunteers receive discounts of 40% on seed orders and 10% on onions sets, potatoes, fruit bushes etc, when ordering with our unique code.

Additionally, GFAA receives a 10% ‘reward’ on seed orders and 5% on other qualifying purchases. We have just received our 2022 Dobies Refund payment into GFAA funds – amounting to £47.86 this year. We have been part of the scheme since November 2017. Typically we receive around £50 per year, meaning that GFAA funds have benefitted to the tune of about £250 over the years. Obviously the benefit to plotters is much more.

Copies of the new Dobies catalogue with a letter explaining the scheme and providing the new discount code will be in the Octagon by close of play today. Orders placed without the code CANNOT benefit from the scheme discounts.

Copies available in the Octagon

Thanks go to all plotters and volunteers who continue to support the scheme.

Plant Buying Opportunity

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