Caroline with Mayor Bill Randall and gardeners at London Road station

It’s Big Dig Week until the 22^nd March so last Saturday I went along to the community garden at London Road station and to Harvest Brighton & Hove’s demonstration garden in Preston Park to find out more.

Big Dig Week celebrates the beginning of the growing season and is an opportunity to get involved in community food-growing projects.

A packed programme of activities is taking place here in Brighton & Hove.

This includes lots of planting and seed sowing alongside opportunities to learn about composting, pruning and other gardening skills.

At the London Road station garden we sowed salad vegetables, prepared beds, mulched and composted.

Whilst there I got talking to the volunteer gardeners, and heard more about the reasons why people got involved.

Some wanted to meet their neighbours; some wanted the exercise; some wanted more access to healthy, affordable food; and some saw the garden as a way to put into practical action a desire to take a more sustainable approach – producing the things they needed closer to home.

The London Road and Preston Park sites are just two of over 20 community gardens around Brighton & Hove taking part in Big Dig Week, so there are plenty of opportunities to get involved.

For more information, including a map of gardens, see http://bit.ly/Wt0OcP