Garden Buddies

What is the idea?

Garden Buddies is an idea that came from the experiences of the Garden Share project. Garden Share matched garden owners and hopeful growers from all over Cambridge, but ran into problems with not being able to provide a space to help nurture the gardening relationships. The garden buddies idea proposes that friends, who know and trust each other, get together informally and garden.

Here's a video featuring Transitioners Jacky and Liz, talking about what they most love about being Garden Buddies: My video

If you want to plant and nurture the Garden Buddies project seed, then here are some suggestions for first steps:

• if you have a garden of your own find some friends, who could help you do something with it
• or if you have a friend, who you know struggles to keep on top of their garden, offer to give them a hand
• make a flier to advertise the project and distribute it around our neighbourhood (shop windows, letter boxes and even allotments have all proven to be effective places)
• organise an introductory meeting to explain the project to interested buddies
• You could draw up a few ground rules with your prospective buddies if you have very different gardening styles or don't know each other well
• Gardens and relationships work best with regular attention, so try to meet regularly - fortnightly during the growing season works well for Liz and Jacky

If you have any questions about the idea or just want a little encouragement to get started, please email Jacky.