2024 was a year of change and opportunity at Edinburgh Garden Partners. Our core
activity of matching garden owners with volunteers thrived, with garden partners
enjoying each other’s company and sharing the harvest.
We continue to recruit volunteers across the city and currently have 37 active
partnerships.
One of the things we offer to support new partnerships are SOS days – these are
especially useful when a bigger job needs done. We do a callout to all our volunteers
and get together in a garden on a weekend day. In 2024 we took down an old shed and
put up a new one, cleared a very overgrown garden and helped move a compost area.
The growing season 2024 was a mixed bag with a very wet spring and lack of warmth
in May/June. Our volunteers and garden owners were committed to make the best of it
though – working hard in their gardens and having fun learning new skills at training
sessions – however the slugs also had their fun and chomped their way through quite a
bit of crop! We did have some real successes though including black tomatoes and
rainbow potatoes
Throughout the year volunteers got together at training sessions delivered by the
Edible Gardening Project at the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh. In 2024 5 training
sessions were organised on a variety of topics (including organic pest control!)
Our programme of events and training continues to be popular with EGP volunteers
and garden owners, with many contributing actively by suggesting what other events
would be of interest. In 2024 we organised a seed swap, a visit to DR Neils Garden in
Duddingston, a drawing in the garden workshop delivered by local artist Annie Lord, a
wheat harvest at Lauriston Farm, a kombucha making workshop and a wreath making
get together in November.
In April 2024 we organised a Garden Owner social event in Saughton Park Gardens.
This involved a cuppa and a wee wander around the gardens and invited garden
owners to be more involved with the wider Edinburgh Garden Partners Community.
Volunteers were also invited along. This event was a great success and we will repeat
this format in March 2025 with a visit to the National Galleries of Scotland to see the
representation of gardens and the plants in art. These events and activities are a great
way to strengthen the Edinburgh Garden Partners community and opportunities for
people to meet each other and chat about their garden sharing partnerships.
We are always interested in exploring new connections with other organisations. Over
the last few years we’ve been working with the Cargo Bike Movement, Edinburgh
Garden Partners staff team is trained to use electric cargo bikes to transport
tools/compost. In summer 2024 we organised a Cargo Bike training session for
volunteers. Trained volunteers can use bikes for free to transport equipment to
gardens.
We also continued our work with MILAN SWO (Charity that supports older people from
Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Mauritian communities in Edinburgh and the
Lothians). A group of volunteers built accessible highbeds to enable the service users
to grow their own produce for their lunch club.
2024 was a year of change for the EGP staff team. Mara Barth joined the team in March
as Volunteer Development Coordinator. In November Debs Hahn (Project Coordinator)
went on maternity leave. To ensure that these staff changes impacted EGP activity as
little as possible, and in discussion with the board, it was decided that rather than
recruiting a like for like maternity cover, Mara would take on a new job title (Community
Coordinator) and cover the majority of the Project Coordinator role. An Assistant
Community Coordinator was recruited to support. Jo Chandler started in November
2024 and brings a wealth of community engagement, social media and comms
experience. She has previously worked in the culture and environmental sector.
We are now well placed to support the existing garden partnerships and continue
exploring collaborative working with other organisations. We look forward to
welcoming Debs back from maternity leave towards the end of 2025.
As ever, we appreciate the ongoing support from Vegware, which gives us the flexibility
to continue bringing together people from different backgrounds and different
generations to share garden space and grow together
