Providence Pastures launch: Roots Allotments officially opens in Garforth

A new community allotment offering local people the chance to grow their own food has officially launched in Garforth.

Transcript

00:00I'm Ed Morrison, founder of Roots. We're at Providence Pastures in Garthorth. We

00:05started Roots two and a half years ago. We were looking for a place to grow in

00:09London after I'd learned how to grow over lockdown and we came across 28-year

00:13waiting lists and we just thought wow that's a long time to wait for an

00:16allotment and then Will and Christian, my partners on this, came up with the

00:21crazy idea to help supply everyone with seeds, plants and just try and get them

00:24growing as as easily as possible. We've got an incredible land partner here,

00:29Jill and Andrew. They've been farming this land organically for decades and

00:33decades and it's just really lovely to partner up with farmers to help them

00:37diversify because it's really hard as a farmer out there. A lot of our connection

00:41is digital nowadays so it's lovely to bring people away from the screens, out

00:44into the open, engaging in nature, growing their own food and forming community.

00:49We've grown everything from potatoes and plenty of courgettes, too many to eat.

00:55Although we've been out of the lockdown for a while I think people were still

00:58trying to grasp a sense of community which I necessarily didn't have when all

01:02that happened. So having this it's nice to just meet people. There's different

01:06events that they put on every weekend. I've done a bit of yoga.

01:09I like watching plants grow and playing.

01:16I like watering the plants and playing with games and stuff.

01:22I've enjoyed de-weeding today because there's loads of grass been growing inside our plot.

01:28When my mum and dad are doing the planting we like running around and playing in the wheelbarrows and stuff.

01:37It's amazing how the plants grow with just some water and sunlight.

01:43We import about 80% of the food. If you include the food that is imported here then remade in the UK,

01:48that's then classified as made in the UK. So the more people we can mobilise to grow,

01:53the better our food security, the stronger our communities will become and

01:57the better Ireland we'll live on.