If you've been to the Garden recently you will have noticed some changes. Most obvious is the dramatic new pergola on the patio, together with a new table and chairs, which makes a welcoming space for visitors and has certainly been well used this year! We also have a new pond which will improve biodiversity, a compost bin which can take food waste from the Arts Centre café, a water container (and
temperature regulator) for the polytunnel, and more netting to keep the rabbits and birds off some of the raised beds.
These additions came courtesy of Tyfu Dyfi, one of the last of the EU-funded Wales Rural Development Programme projects which have done so much to support community food initiatives over the years. Tyfu Dyfi was run by a partnership that included ecodyfi, Garden Organic, Aber Food Surplus and Penparcau Community Forum, and its aim was to connect people, food and nature across the Dyfi Biosphere. It supported a range of activities over the past two years, including a Green Fair at Maes Gwenfrewi (North Road), a seedling swap at the Bandstand and several events at our garden, including a staff well-being session, a student well-being session and a Welsh-medium gardening course.
All this has given the garden quite a boost. We’ve seen what the garden can do: it’s a place to teach gardening and practical conservation skills, for therapeutic activity (social prescribing) and general well-being. It could support micro commercial enterprises to do with food production, composting, seed saving and practical gardening classes.
So the end of EU funding provides us with an opportunity to revisit what the garden is for and how it operates.
For example, do we want a more structured programme of engagement and classes for volunteers? Or set aside some spaces to grow crops for sale? Or more active projects with students living on campus? Or more events using the garden as a social space? There is lots of scope, and some of this lends itself to more joined up community growing projects across Aberystwyth where further funding might be needed.
But the question is: where do we want to put our energies, and how will we do it?
To help us with our planning, please come to an open afternoon on Friday 15th September, meeting at the garden at 3pm, and including a short AGM. If it’s wet, we have an alternative plan. We will talk about what we have been doing and what we might do.
We hope regular visitors and volunteers will come along, as well as anyone else who has an interest in our garden and may want to get more involved in our plans for the future.
In particular we would like to create a volunteer team that will share the responsibility for the garden, all the way from watering and weeding up to managing the growing, teaching newcomers and developing new initiatives around the university. Could that be you?
Finally, the garden runs on donations, not just of time but also money. Although we try to be as self-sufficient as we can, we regularly need to pay for seeds and compost, fuel for the strimmer, public liability insurance, refreshments for events and so on. If you have benefited from the Garden in any way, please consider giving perhaps £20-50 to keep us going. You can use the Donate button at the top of the home page.
Please let us know if you are coming to our public meeting on 15 September, and send your offers and ideas to garden-project@aber.ac.uk.
Marc Welsh and Jane Powell, volunteer coordinators.