The Gringley Gringo Community Growing Project |
|  | The new Communty Growing Project for 2010 is a joint venture between Gringley Gringo and the National Trust here at Clumber Park, Nottinghamshire. This is an extention of the existing projects already working within local schools. The aim of the project is to involve the local community including a wider catchment of schools from the Nottinghamshire area in planting and cultivating a range of vegetables and chilli peppers. |
| | It is hoped that the project will raise awareness of horticultural techniques and interest in the origins of the food we all eat. The project provides a valuable educational experience for local children, enabling them to play a hands-on role and understand concepts such as organic growing, food miles and the impact we have on the local and global environment. It is also widely believed that children are more likely to try new foods if they've been involved in the growing process, helping to encourage a healthy diet and lifestyle. |  |
|  | The National Trust hope the project will bring more visitors to Clumber Park, and were kind enough to provide 12 volunteers to help construct our first 40ft polytunnel that will be used to expand our growing programme. We really appreciate the continued support from the National Trust for this project, which is a demonstration of their ongoing commitment to support local businesses. We are hoping to construct at least two more polytunnels in the near future.
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| | At the start of the next growing season, in collaboration with the local community, we will be using our new polytunnel to plant vegetables and chilli peppers, of which some will be purchased for use in our own range of Gringley Gringo products. These vegetables include onions, garlic, shallots, cauliflowers, courgettes, peppers, beans, tomatoes and carrots. Chilli pepper varieties will include jalapeno chillis, habanero chillis, serrano chillis, dutch chillis and many more. |  |
|  | Gringley Gringo will buy some of this produce from the Community Growing Project, and the revenue generated will be used to fund further local community projects.
It looks like 2010 will be an exciting year for Gringley Gringo and the Community Growing Project. For further information watch this space!
To find out how you can get involved with this and other community projects, please
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| Grow For Gringley Gringo! With a warm welcome to our newest growing partners, we would like to say a big thank you to the schools and community groups in Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire for their continued support of the 'Grow For Gringley' project.
We would also like to thank the large number of schools that have contacted us with a view to getting involved in the scheme. It has been lovely to hear from you all and we hope to be able to visit you individually as soon as possible to discuss how the project works and provide you with the new information packs for 2009 which we are busily working on.
We have been speaking with one of our biggest suppliers, a farm in Dorset who supply us with some of our rarer chilli varieties. Hopefully they will be supplying the 'Grow For Gringley' project with chilli seeds for next years crop. We plan to pick a wider variety of chilli derivatives this year which should be reasonably easy to grow and will also crop before the summer holidays so that the children get to see their hard work bear fruit (quite literally) before they break up from school.
This also means that we will be using a greater variety of chillies in our recipes. What better excuse to think up some new recipes?
As well as the actual chilli growing experience, the project also contributes to our dual aims of community involvement and reducing unnecessary food miles. To this end, we always try to raise awareness of the latter amongst everyone we work with, from suppliers to customers, our staff and the children we work with via the 'Grow For Gringley' project.
If you represent a school or community group and would like to join the scheme, please contact either Debby Porter or Sarah Priestley. In case you are unfamiliar with the scheme, we provide chilli seeds to participants who grow the plants. We then buy the crop back at wholesale prices. Children get a fun, educational experience with a cash bonus for the school or group, and we get to reduce food miles and raise awareness of our products in the local area.
With special thanks and recognition to the following schools:
Cuckney CofE Primary School - Mansfield, Notts
Tuxford School - Tuxford, Notts
Mattersey Primary School - Mattersey, Notts
St Giles Special School - Retford, Notts
St Peters CofE Primary School - Gringley-On-The-Hill, Notts
Ranskill Primary School - Ranskill, Notts |
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