Developing an Urban Community Growing Space

Octopus Community Network’s Urban Growing Programme is offering free training on Wednesday mornings (9.30 – 12.30 am) on ‘Developing an Urban Community Growing Space’.

Dates: 8 weeks from Wednesday 23^rd August to Wednesday 11^th October 

Venue: The Arc Centre, St Paul Street N1

The programme is for people who are looking to become involved in developing and looking after their local green spaces; with the aim of looking after anything from a single bed of flowers to tackling a much bigger space, such as an unused space that is calling out for ‘greening’ activity including food growing, to take place. 

Setting up a community garden, a gardening group or gardening as an individual is a great way to meet your neighbours, look after your health and wellbeing, improve your environment, build a greater sense of community and see the fruits of your labour bloom. We know that starting off gardening, equipping yourselves and finding out just what you can and can’t do can seem like a lot of work and may be off-putting. We are offering this free introductory training to provide a little bit of support getting your gardening ideas off the ground.

Workshop Programme 

• Session 1: Wednesday 23rd August - Introduction to Community Organising
• Session 2: Wednesday 30^th August - Introduction to Community Organising
• Session 3: Wednesday 6^th September - Identifying your Site / Space (design, resources, environmental factors, land ownership)
• Session 4: Wednesday 13th September - Soil and Composting 
• Session 5: Wednesday 20^th September - Food Growing
• Session 6: Wednesday 27th September - Gardening for Wildlife (increasing bio-diversity and climate resilience)
• Session 7: Wednesday 4th October - Community Engagement & Working with People (health and safety, safeguarding and good community practices)
• Session 8: Wednesday 11^th October - Introduction Visit the Octopus Community Plant Nursery (how the Community Plant Nursery can support you)

If you want to find out more about the programme email info@octopuscommunities.org.uk or call 0207 263 7095

To get the best learning from this free training we want people to sign up to the whole course, but we understand everyone has time limitations so it’s okay if you can only attend some of the dates and not others.

If you can't make weekdays let us know if you are interested and able to attend evening or weekend times as we will hope to run this course again later in the autumn.