Appeal by Derbyshire based community centre for volunteers to help “bring community garden to life”

St Barnabas church and community centre on Pilsley Road are hoping to get more local people to help with the planning and maintenance of their community garden space. The centre’s community garden project began almost a year ago.

Admin for the community centre, Jonathan Griggs said: “We saw our empty outside space as something which we could utilise to serve two purposes. One was to bring people from the community together who enjoy gardening, and secondly for the benefit of local people who may wish to use the space.”

The garden at the back of the centre consists of six raised bed planters. These have been adopted by local community groups who have been growing both flowers and vegetables. There is also a small orchard including pear and apple trees and a seating area.

The centre also maintains a small remembrance garden, offering a place of quiet reflection. Both gardens are open to the public and free to use.

Events coordinator at the community centre, Amanda Large said: “We want to encourage people to come and get to know each other and get talking. There’s been a lot of development in the area, and with new people moving here this gives them a chance to get outdoors and meet new people.

“Also, some people from around here just don’t have much outdoor space where they live. We felt a community garden could provide them with that.”

The centre is currently appealing to local people to help them transform the garden, and give back something to the community.

There are almost monthly Saturday group meetings at the centre, to discuss ideas of what to do next with the garden and to tackle projects. People are also encouraged to pop down as and when they are available to provide a helping hand.

The last meeting was on November 2, during which the volunteer gardeners planted bulbs in the remembrance garden, trimmed hedges and took down the summer hanging baskets in preparation for the winter.

Due to the busy Christmas period at the centre, the next community garden meet up is scheduled to take place on January 18 at 10am to plant new trees and hedges.

One member of the St Barnabas staff who has done a lot of work on the Community Garden is Marlene Vickers.

Marlene enjoys gardening at home when she has the time, and believes there are many positives to the pastime. She also claims that working on the community garden is something that would benefit a lot of local people.

She said: “It’s good for your mental health and it's a nice way to meet people. If you are in the area, come down to the Centre, have tea and a biscuit, everybody is welcome.

“With gardening you don’t have to be physical or strong necessarily, sometimes it’s just about the knowledge and expertise. Knowing what to plant where and what needs pruning. With a job this size that knowledge helps and that’s what we could really do with that at the minute.”

More information about the Community garden project and future meet ups can be found on the St Barnabas Centre Facebook page.