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A young man with a pink and yellow cap harvests an abundant crop of food in an urban community garden.
Orange illustration of a carrot.

Community food growers’ guide

13-10-2025

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Case study

Hear from those in the grow about what it takes to create good food and good feelings together. A guide to community food growing, starting from nothing.
Communities - Community engagement
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©National Trust Images Rebecca Hughes

People and nature growing together

Community food growing is the idea that local people can come together to grow delicious food produce in neighbourhood spaces.

Food is a universal language, able to bridge cultural and social divides and root us back in nature and the outdoors. This recent (May 2025) report from the Coronation Gardens for Food and Nature project, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, found that sowing and growing as a community has benefits including:

  • Boosts local economies and provides opportunities to access natural spaces
  • Improves people’s physical health through them spending time in nature
  • Can make a huge difference to mental health and wellbeing as people work together to grow food in their local area

Anyone, anywhere can kick off a community food growing initiative. With 85% of the UK population living in urban areas, pockets of shared plots and gardens are a simple way to bring colour, connection and nature to unloved, grey spaces right on people’s doorsteps.

Read on to hear how people ‘in the grow’ planted the seeds of community food growing where they live, and the positive impact it’s had on those around them.

Granton Community Gardeners in pictures

In a historically industrial district of north Edinburgh, you’ll find the Granton Community Gardeners growing, cooking and eating food together. Co-founder Tom Kirby shares their story.

More about Granton Community Gardeners
Two people tend to an allotment-style area of green space in an urban estate. It is surrounded by grey houses and a bus passes on the road behind.

©Granton Community Gardeners

Grassroots action

In 2010 a group of neighbours on a council estate in Granton, north Edinburgh, met to dig up a neglected patch of grass on a street corner. Flowers and vegetables were planted, and these longstanding residents started chatting. The idea spread and more community gardens were created here. We decided to form a group - Granton Community Gardeners - to coordinate our activities, share learnings and access resources. Our first two years were funded by a donated tenner and 54p in dug-up coins. Then in 2017, we formalised our work and became a charity.

A young lady standing in front of a white garden wall smiles as she passes a cup to a man with outstretched arms. She looks to have ladled the cup contents from a large cooking pot. She wears a light brown headscarf, he is shaded from the sun by a black hat whilst another man in the foreground wears a colourful cap.

©National Trust Images / Rebecca Hughes

An invitation to lunch

It felt important to enjoy our crops together. Granton has high food insecurity, so we invited the wider community along too. The sense of community that’s grown with understanding, trust and friendship among a diverse group over regular meals, is incredible. It’s perhaps unusual to eat with people beyond immediate family or close friends, but in pooling skills, cultural flavours and our fresh produce, we eat far tastier (and healthier) food than if we ate in our flats.

A group of people relax in an urban community garden. Some chat under the shade of a blue gazebo, others sit at sunny tables and one or two potter about doing gardening jobs.

©National Trust Images / Rebecca Hughes

Caring for land and people

In 2018 we gained access to a ‘gap site’ where a building had been demolished. Since then, over 800 people have helped transform it into a flourishing garden and outdoor events space. We host weekly drop ins, open to all, with cooking and gardening clubs and a weekly free community lunch. People come for lots of reasons; to de-stress, socialise, get food, get clothes from our ‘freeshop’, visit the chickens, learn about food growing or cooking, help in the garden or find help in a crisis.

A young girl in a white hat crouches down on decking to observe the lush green and yellow plants growing in the garden surrounds.

©National Trust Images / Rebecca Hughes

Nature is part of our community

Through our garden activities we encourage understanding, respect and care for nature and the wildlife that calls Granton home. From pets - including a surprising number of tortoises – to city mice, moths, willows and worms, brownfield trees, verge grasslands and rooftop lichens. Like any community we have plenty of issues; ignorance, inequalities, and imbalance. But the garden is a much-needed place of resilience, care and creativity where people and nature flourish together.

Four members of the Granton Community Gardeners group harvest wheat on the corner of an urban estate. The wheat comes to their waists and there are grey houses in the background.

©Granton Community Gardeners

Growing wheat and baking bread

We’re supported by a local charity, ‘Scotland The Bread’, to sow heritage Scottish wheat. It inspired us to start an ad hoc ‘Bread Club’, progressing with demand to a weekly community bakery. The best bread should be for everyone! People pay what they can – whether that’s nothing at all or a bit extra to support our work. From humble street corner beginnings, we’re set to sow three acres this year (2025) on nearby Lauriston Farm.

Granton Community Gardeners in numbers

When it comes to sharing good food and good feelings in the community, the numbers from Granton speak for themselves.

57

Average number of people who join in on Wednesday afternoons

Locals visit the community garden on Wednesday to help with seasonal gardening tasks and grow food. Everyone helping gets a share of the harvest and there’s a free hot community lunch too.

65

Community meals in the garden each year

In addition to weekly lunches, Granton hosts free hot community meals every few weeks, served up by SCRAN VAN, a mobile kitchen and catering service.

80+

Food plants grown in the garden

Cucumber, quinoa, carrots, onions, courgettes and more…if you can eat it, you’ll probably find it growing here.

15

Local community food growing spaces supported

Our roots spread beyond the community garden across the estate to plots and orchards on street corners, in front gardens or roadside.

10 ingredients for successful community food growing

You may share green space on an estate, want to transform a neglected corner or have no land at all.

You may have an organisation behind you, the support of a local group or be starting out on your own. The great news is it’s always possible to grow something, whatever your situation. From the heart of Granton, Tom shares the 10 ingredients in his recipe for success.

When you find a bit of land you think you could grow food on, it’s important to dig up more information and check it’s right for you:

  • Who owns it (e.g. local authority or private landowner)?
  • Do you need to get permission (different owners have different approaches – if you can get long-term permission, people may feel there’s more reason to invest their time and effort and it could be easier to get funding)?

Food for thought: ‘guerilla gardening’ is one way to show your idea works, improve an area, make people smile, build goodwill and gain support.

  • Find out how the land is currently used and maintained (e.g. do dogs use it or children play on it?) and talk to any users

Food for thought: if there’s a chance a mowing team may come round, protect your planting by very obviously removing all grass from the area you’re using.

  • Who will it affect if you change how land is used (e.g. if someone can see it from their window or walks past it every day, then consider involving them or getting their support)?
  • What’s the soil like (it’s possible to grow almost anywhere with raised planters and topsoil, but it’s cheaper to take advantage of existing good soil)?
  • Research the history of the land for an initial indication of the level of risk of soil contamination (e.g. it’s always been a green space = likely low risk, there have been buildings on the site = some risk, there is nearby industry = may be high risk.

Food for thought: local authorities may be able to help you with soil testing/advice.

Water, kettles and toilets are essentials. If you have a water supply, you can always feed the plants you’re growing. If you have a kettle to make hot drinks, volunteers will be happier. If you have a toilet nearby, volunteers can spend more time at the community garden.

There may be ways to improvise all these things, especially in the short term and if volunteers are local. But for the long term and when volunteers coming from any distance, these basic facilities are essential for successful community food growing.

Begin by growing something, somewhere. Simply making the change from growing nothing to growing anything is the key to kickstarting momentum. If you’re unsure if something will work, try planting a small batch of it before you commit to investing more time and money.

Always be open to others joining you. Don’t worry if some are sceptical at first, keep an open invitation and make it feel like it’s everyone’s garden.

  • If you’re on your own, or a very small group, take on something you can realistically manage. You can grow your ambitions as more people join.
  • If others join with different ideas or want to take the initiative, be patient, listen, and find ways to offer different things that play to different people’s strengths.
  • Make it as easy as possible for people to join by holding events and open days.
  • Make it easier for new people to join in by offering small entry level tasks.

If you get on well as a group and enjoy what you’re doing, people are more likely to want to join. And when you have a shared goal, that good feeling grows and flourishes over time – helping you resolve differences and conflicts and achieve long term sustainability and success.

The act of transforming a space by creating a garden can naturally attract more local attention than a verbal announcement or written publicity. Especially when it’s somewhere people wouldn’t expect it.

Build on this positive PR by giving your new audience an easy way to contact you and join in.

Being present at the growing site at the same time each week will ensure people know where to find you.

Having full watering cans or trowels to hand gives people a quick and simple way to join the movement.

Remember that growing food is always an achievement, even for skilled growers with the ideal infrastructure. So enjoy every success and celebrate them together.

  • When you successfully grow food, share it with each other and celebrate the fact you’re producers as well as consumers.
  • When you produce a good crop, host communal meals and harvest events and invite the wider community.

This is the simplest way to document your progress and is a powerful way of communicating what you do.

Food for thought: posting your photos on social media could help you reach an even wider and more diverse audience.

Photos can also be useful for tracking how your garden changes through the seasons and helping you observe what works and what doesn’t for future planting.

Make an informed decision about whether formalising your community food growing group is right for you by considering both the upsides and the downsides:

Informal groups

  • The upsides: they are low commitment, low admin and can be a great way to test things out.
  • The downsides: they aren’t eligible for funding and can’t enter formal arrangements like leases.

Formalised organisations

  • The upsides: they can take on leases for land, secure funding, and employ staff.
  • The downsides: they require admin, accounts, insurance, policies and careful governance.

Food for thought: if you decide to formalise, ensure that everyone understands this is about benefitting from increased opportunities and capacity and not about loss of ownership.

This exciting, diverse and creative movement reaches across the UK and far beyond. There’s a huge amount to be gained by learning from and sharing with others. There’s also a wealth of experience and advice to draw on, including support organisations like Social Farms & Gardens.

More gr-ate examples of community food growing

There is no one-size-fits-all way to grow delicious food together. Here are some more organisations putting roots down in their communities across the UK.

Incredible Edible

Incredible Edible has a vision to create kind, confident and connected communities through the power of food. Founded in a northern market town over a decade ago, Incredible Edible is now a federation of over 200 local Incredible Edible. You can find your local group via their website and access resources to support you with setting up and running your own Incredible Edible group.

Visit Incredible Edible
Visit Incredible Edible

Zebra Collective

Zebra Collective in Plymouth is working towards a just and sustainable society through culture change, community development, reflective practice and training. Zebra’s weekly Grow, Cook, Share Club sows vegetables to transform their neighbourhood centre garden for nature. It’s open to everyone, with an ambition to welcome underrepresented groups in the community such as asylum seekers and refugees especially.

More about Zebra Collective
More about Zebra Collective

Mafwa Theatre

Mafwa Theatre runs a gardening group that brings refugees, asylum seekers and settled communities together in the heart of Lincoln Green, Leeds. Once a disused playground, Roxby Community Garden is now a thriving green space open to all, where the ‘Lincoln Greeners’ group tackles seasonal gardening jobs and grows flowers and vegetables each week. The garden provides stability, peace and cultural connection, in particular for those far from home.

Meet the Lincoln Greeners
Meet the Lincoln Greeners

Octopus Urban Growing

Octopus Community Network’s urban growing programme helps transform underused spaces into vibrant community gardens, connecting residents through seasonal workshops and ecological initiatives. Rooted in the rich diversity of Islington’s communities, the programme celebrates different cultures and perspectives. There’s a strong focus on repurposing social housing land for food growing and biodiversity, with “nature on our doorstep, not a destination.” At the heart of this is the Community Plant Nursery, nurturing a network of neighbourhood growers inspired by their communities.

Find out about Octopus
Find out about Octopus

Earth in Common

Earth in Common in Edinburgh started as a community movement to reclaim neglected common good land within a local part. It is now a thriving ‘urban croft’, with abundant food growing spaces that supply a bustling onsite café, regular food and farmers markets and learning opportunities. Earth in Common’s family spirit is rooted in its Highland croft heritage, bringing the community of Leith together as a force for good.

More about Earth in Common
More about Earth in Common

Hannah Fields

Hannah Fields mobilised the community of Littleover, Derby to help transform an overgrown two-acre green site that had been abandoned for more than two decades. It now provides the community with a vast selection of seasonal fruit and vegetables, a Forest School and children's activities, garden volunteering sessions and onsite café. At the heart of it all is a belief in the benefits of social connection, nature, holistic wellbeing and community.

Discover Hannah Fields
Discover Hannah Fields

Horton Community Farm

Horton Community Farm in inner-city Bradford is a centre for food growing and community resilience. On a site of abandoned allotments alongside residents tending their own allotments, the farm has a therapy garden, play area for children, wildlife areas, an orchard, a compost toilet, and cabins for storage. The community growing spaces bring together people seeking sanctuary, those with learning disabilities, young families, people in pregnancy and folk wishing to improve their mental and physical health.

Horton Community Farm
Horton Community Farm

Helping you to help nature where you live

Get free inspiration, ideas and advice for organising a community project or starting your own group.

The Wildlife Trusts Community Hub has simple, easy-to-understand guides that tell you how to find funding and run a group, plus everything you need to know about insurance, banks, health and safety and more. The hub was made possible thanks to The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Meanwhile the ‘Grow Wild Guide’ created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, is packed with practical advice and tips on how to set up and run your own community growing project.

Visit The Wildlife Trusts Community Hub Download Kew’s free growing guide
A person wearing a hat and utility vest watering plants within a community garden.

©National Trust Images / Rebecca Hughes

You might also be interested in

Hull City Council’s Right to Grow scheme

RHS community gardening groups

The Conservation Volunteers Community Network