OUR ROOTS
Our seed for a community garden in Northwick Park was planted by our friend & mentor Sonja Breuer (MSc. Ayurveda Med.) back in 2017. She saw the immense potential in the site and had the vision of a food forest that would bring pleasure to the local community for years to come as a space to relax, learn and grow together. This is especially relevant at a time when organic food in supermarkets is expensive, school children are often unaware of how food is naturally grown and green spaces in London increasingly need protection, allowing plants and wildlife to survive and flourish in their natural habitat.
The vision turned in to a beautiful community garden planted with fruit and nut trees, shrubs with edible berries, herbaceous perennials with edible leaves, flowers and herbs. There are places to sit, made from recycled and natural materials, ensuring everyone can enjoy the natural surroundings. Children have painted and written plant labels for the garden and an information boards to highlight the type of trees, plants and wildlife you may spot in the garden will be added
In a mature community garden, the wonderful thing is that fruit and berries can be picked as they ripen throughout the year - when in season and without hundreds of travel miles attached!
Everything is organic as we stay away from nasty pesticides, herbicides or chemical fertilizers.
PERMACULTURE
Permablitz London are our expert garden consultants. Their concept is to involve people from the local community as volunteers to learn through doing about permaculture and gardening and through ongoing involvement to take care of the trees and plants.
The garden design is based on the permaculture concept, which mimics natural patterns of ecosystems. The ecosystem develops over time to take care of the garden, becoming a natural self-sustaining development requiring minimal maintenance and improving biodiversity. The garden needed a little helping hand at the beginning to establish itself fully.
The way we approached the implementation was by installing the garden in phases through a timetable of 'Permablitzes'. A 'Permablitz' is a one day garden makeover event supported by a group of volunteers.
If you would like to volunteer at a Permablitz or take part in one of our other events, refer to Get Involved and join our mailing list.
OUR HISTORY
Northwick Park Community Garden (NPCG) was established as a charity in October 2018.
We got together with local residents and Brent Council officials in October 2018 to measure the designated garden area in Northwick Park and since then have been receiving fantastic support from the local community and the Council - the latter being the landlord!
In November 2018, we launched NPCG and kicked off the food forest garden project by holding a community engagement event.
In February 2019, the charity received good news from Brent Council that the Community Infrastructure Level (CIL) funding bid, submitted in December 2018, was successful.
We held a series of workshops between January and April 2019 to learn about permaculture and food forest gardens, potted up seedlings and bare-rooted fruit trees, and made mushroom logs (part of the soil-food web) all in preparation for the forest garden.
We held our first Permablitz on 12th May 2019 when the community got together and made a great start with planting their food forest garden in Northwick Park. At the Permablitz on 16th June 2019 we planted the lovely plants received from the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Innovative seating from recycled materials was installed, cleverly disguised water storage tanks.
On 30th June 2019, we officially opened the community garden.
Check out our Events page for what's coming up next and your chance to get involved.
