Community Projects

Our Community Projects

"In a community garden, the true beauty lies not only in the blossoming plants but also in the friendships that bloom among the gardeners."

Introduction:

Community gardens are vibrant spaces where individuals come together to cultivate food, foster connections, and create a sustainable environment.

These shared green spaces offer a multitude of benefits for both individuals and the community as a whole.

Good afternoon my name is Linda Dunstone and I am a support tutor and garden designer for Permaculture Kernow. I have lived and worked on the Rame Peninsula for 42 years and have been practising permaculture in my own field for over 25 years. By leaving areas of our field wild and planting insect and bird friendly plants we now have a huge range of insects and birds regularly visiting and nesting including the now rare greenfinch, gold crest, lesser spotted woodpecker, nuthatch, blue tits, great tits coal tits, robins blackbirds and dunnocks. We know our climate here on the Rame Peninsula is conducive to growing fruits, nuts and many types of vegetables, I can pick something to eat every day of the year from my forest garden at Penlee.

We feel that's it's vitally important we produce and grow food locally, for our local Rame population and for future generations. especially at this time in history when we hear globally of food shortages, it makes so much sense to prepare and plant the right trees and create wildlif habitat now for a healthy future.

'Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature, we believe in Earth care, People care and Fair share.

Permaculture Kernow was started in Millbrook in 2019 by Sylvie Gomez and Josh Gomez and is supported by several local volunteers. PK has grown to create community garden spaces, orchards and delivered design courses to over 70 students. We cover many relevant subjects :

Cultivated ecology

Climates

Soils

Water in landscape

Forests and trees

Click here

To see our full course list

We have established a Community garden in Milbrook and recently been asked to design Wellbeing garden for our local Torpoint health centre which we are hoping to have in place by the end of June. We meet most weekends at one of our projects and advertise which day and time on our what's app group, please let us know your name and phone number if you would like to be added to our group. There's no pressure, if you would like to come along and help you are most welcome whenever suits you.

At the end of February 2022 We were approached by MWRPC to see if we would be interested in taking on the grassy/ meadowland that has now become Maker with Rame Community Orchard between Coombe Park and Coombe park close.

We met at the site and observed the land, it soon became apparent that this is a challenging piece of meadowland on a very steep east facing slope, and visited regularly by over 20 deer. We were warned early on by an elderly local lady that an orchard had been planted twice before and only 2 apple trees had survived!

So We knew we would have to find ways to overcome these challenges. Using permaculture methods we applied the swale approach to tree planting.

The definition of a swale is a shady spot, or a sunken or marshy area, swales are often used in hot countries like Australia with low rainfall. They are 1 metre wide by half a metre deep trenches the excess soil piled next to the swale creates a berm. This is the ideal place to plant the tree. Water running down the steep slope and into the swale then feeds the roots of the tree and the swale is filled with compost and mulch so it doesn’t dry out.

As we were already in March we were getting near the end of the tree planting season so We agreed with the Parish council to start straight away in mid March. We invited our local community, school children and families to come along and help us plant a variety of Apple, pear, plum and cherry trees.

We were very grateful,to another local resident who built a couple of nesting bird boxes which are installed in trees.

Kingfisher playgroup and local residents continued to visit regularly helping water and plant wild flower seeds.

2022 also proved to be the driest summer on record so we carried 22 litres of water every couple of weeks for the first few months to make sure each of the trees didn't dry out.

With no water on site we soon installed a shed and guttering to feed 3 large water butts high up the slope under the 350 year old oak tree.

As we wanted to increase the bio diversity and not mow the grass a few of us decided to do a scything course, so 6 of us trained up to enable us to maintain the paths by infrequent mowing creating a tussocky grassland that has a deep litter underlayer providing habitat for small mammals such as voles and mice that support local barn owl populations.

We were very happy to hear from a local resident that barn owls are now regular visitors to the orchard.

Anita a local resident introduced bee hives that are doing very well she is hoping to gather honey this year and other local residents have mentioned that they have noticed more bees and insect life in their gardens.

We are following Permaculture methods, also promoted by King Charles' who has been an advocate of preserving ancient meadowland for bio diversity for the past 25 years, so we are taking a gentle approach to grassland management as we know mowing destroys wildlife habitat and we hope that local residents can appreciate this wild life haven right on the their doorstep.

The orchard is available to everyone, there are a few picnic benches and it a lovely place to sit take a picnic and listen and watch the insect and bird life.

We are looking to get a TPO (tree preservation order) on the majestic ancient oak right at the top of the orchard. This beautiful tree has been dated at 350-400 years old, so could have seen the Mayflower set sail and leave Plymouth Sound

Yesterday we met at the orchard and had the youngest members of the parish, one of them a local family living at Coombe Park with their 4 month old baby and my 2 month old grandson and children and families help plant an apple tree for the coronation at the entrance to the orchard. We gave all the fruit trees in the orchard a feed to help them grow strong and we noticed that the yellow rattle is growing, this suppresses grassland to enable wild flowers to flourish, many of the trees have blossom and are fruiting especially the plums, cherries and apple trees. We will continue to care for the trees, sow seeds and scythe paths throughout the summer months.

The orchard is available to everyone, there are a few picnic benches and it a lovely place to sit take a picnic and listen and watch the insect and bird life.

If you would like to learn more or volenteer at one of our diggins, please contact us!