Grow Your Own - Gro Zone

Growing your own fruit and vegetables has taken off in a massive way in the UK particularly in recent years. I remember the Good Life as a child and lived on a self sufficient farm in the early 80's for a year where hard work and early rising took the place of teenage angst and partying.

The Royal Horticultural Society has a whole section on growing your own with blogs, videos and advice but most of this is aimed at families and individuals who grow their own for their own table rather than at community gardens and schemes.

In Blackburn as part of the Energy Zone there is a Gro Zone where different community groups are encouraged to take part in gardening and growing their own fruit and vegetables. The Young Gardeners Group,  which ran this year had 5 weekly sessions aimed at learning new skills, educating and raising young peoples knowledge of growing vegatables and the benefits of doing so. Activities included potting, planting, sowing seeds, thinning and digging up vegatables, planting a herb wheel and growing sun flowers. The group had young people from  3 – 14 years. It was very popular and over the course of 5 weeks saw 39 different children take part.


As I have blogged before about the Energy Zone and SAMs in particular I thought I would mainly use pictures to tell the story of this wonderful community resource which educates and enables people to be involved in the growing of their own food. 

As you can see this resource is based in a very urban setting in an area which has often been seen as rough and volatile in Blackburn.  The kids in these pictures were part of the gardening group and really enjoyed getting their hands dirty and learning new skills. 

There are of course similar schemes across the UK. The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens is a National Charity which supports, represents and promotes community-managed farms, gardens, allotments and other green spaces which create opportunities for local communities to grow. 


The benefit to local communities of supporting and volunteering in these green spaces and truly engaging with the process of growing their own food are countless not just in terms of physical well being but mental well being too. There is often a lack of access to green spaces in urban areas and a sense of dislocation from the community so projects like the Gro Zone in Blackburn help to create links and provide productive, creative and safe spaces where people can learn new skills and add to the development of the community.