OBee CIC was established to undertake the following objectives at Orchard Barn

• Provide environmentally sustainable indoor and outdoor facilities and structure for community activities.
• Increase participation in heritage activities. Provide opportunities for learning traditional skills through practical participation.
• Employ, and encourage the use of, natural resources and organic techniques through education, communication of best practices and practical demonstration of uses.
• Conserve and enhance the historic features of the local landscape, including traditional orchards.
• Develop community-supported vegetable plots, orchards, and woodland.
• Encourage existing wildlife, and aim to increase biodiversity, by improving the habitat of sites within the local community.
• Provide increased access to, and opportunities for exercise in, green space that is close to the community.
• Increase, through a holistic educational programme, community awareness and understanding of the effect the individual has on the environment – and the vital interconnectedness between the health of the environment and the health of the individual.

Since 2007, volunteers and trainees have succeeded in bringing an old barn back from dereliction and are now embarking on the next phase of the project – the renovation of the old orchard and converting bramble patches into productive food areas. We run natural/traditional building and green wood working courses utilising real projects on live projects. We hope to demonstrate self-reliance in terms of energy, water and waste.

SNCG is a two-acre site which provides a great opportunity to engage with nature in a variety of habitats. They have wildflower meadows, several ponds, a small woodland, orchards and vegetable plots. The garden is managed by a varied team of volunteers, who work through the year to keep it looking beautiful. Over the years the garden has become a unique resource for local schools and community groups/ organisations.
SNCG host a wide range of workshops including; green woodworking and willow weaving. They also hold events throughout the year for the local community

The small back garden of the bungalow contains a wallhouse (a small lean-to greenhouse) and a bed where herbs and salads are grown. It also includes minarette and wall trained fruit trees and constitutes zone 1. The front garden shelters the house from the road and is intended to be wildlife friendly - most of it can be described as ‘zone 5’. However some parts of the front garden area (including the south facing wall of the house) are specifically used for tender fruit production and so can be viewed as part of zone1.

The allotment and forest garden (combined area 16 poles) are a five minute walk away from the house and count as zone 2. Most of my vegetables and fruit are grown there. However the home garden ‘feeds’ the allotment and forest garden in terms of young plants raised in the wallhouse and grass cuttings and other green waste to use as mulch or to add to the compost heap. Similarly the zone 2 area of the allotment and forest garden feed the home garden (as well as the kitchen!) in terms of plants (like lavender) raised on a nursery bed on the allotment and also, of course, ready to use garden compost. The short walk between the bungalow and allotment field is useful for foraging fertility - grass cuttings from my neighbours and also leaves collected from under the trees lining the road in the autumn.

Carlton is close to the river Ouse and the soil here is alluvial, light and free draining - easy to work with but hungry so protecting the soil and boosting its fertility is crucial for effective food production. So as well as producing fruit and vegetables the zone 2 area acts as a ‘fertility production factory’ and a lot of compost is produced in three large compost bins. Sheet mulching with grass and cardboard is used extensively to suppress weeds and conserve moisture and this mulch rots down to give more compost and feed the soil. I have found sheet mulching to be particularly useful (it’s my permaculture passion) and it is now central to my gardening technique.

The Triangle Garden is a community garden, created and cultivated by local people of all ages and abilities and run on permaculture principles. It is part of a local park in Hitchin, and is open all year round.
We aim to enable people to experience and explore their relationship with the natural world, through a variety of different activities:

Volunteer gardening activities: on weekends and evenings to create, maintain and develop new features in the Garden for the benefit of people and wildlife.

Workshop and Courses: focusing on a wide range of aspects of sustainable living, including forest gardening, permaculture design, permaculture gardening, food growing and preserving, wine-making, plant propagation and pruning, wildlife awareness, and hedgerow crafts including basketry and willow weaving.
Community events: bringing people together, celebrating what’s special about our community and raising awareness about sustainability
Growing Ability: our project for adults with learning difficulties. The Triangle Garden and allotment provide the setting for ‘social and therapeutic horticulture’ sessions in partnership with Growing People. a local horticulture therapy provider. The project aims to improve the well-being, self-confidence, social and work-life skills of those who take part, through gardening and horticulture.

Craft Ability: a pilot project for adults with learning and/or mental health difficulties. The Pavilion workshop provides the setting for social and therapeutic woodwork sessions in partnership with Growing People. The project aims to improve the well-being, self-confidence, social and work-life skills of those who take part, through collaborative craft and woodwork projects.

The Growing Gang: a garden maintenance social enterprise run by adults with learning disabilities with qualified staff support, focussing on community spaces and those in need. In partnership with Growing People.

Discover what you can do at the Triangle Community Garden…

We have a spectacular forest garden under glass, which we use as an educational and inspirational area, as well as a food production area, and sell the crops. We grow and sell the following from this area: grapes, peaches, nectarines, figs, cherries, apricots, hops, and a variety of herbs including thyme, dill, and sage. We also use permaculture principles across the rest of the site where the main food production is done. We heavily promote biodiversity to help us create a balanced system to reduce pest and disease issues. We minimise outside inputs, buying in no outside fertility or growing medium. We reuse and recycle where possible, using growing techniques such as blocking to reduce our reliance on plastics, and promote healthy transplants.

The Oak Tree Low Carbon Farm is 12 acres in size, comprising vegetable beds for our community supported agriculture scheme members, low carbon cut flowers, a sizable forest garden (currently being established), digging pigs fed on legal waste food, pastured chickens and geese, and in early 2014, pastured beef cattle. We seek new members from time to time, please visit our website for details of how to visit the farm.

Oakwood Denbury school is evolving a narrative that includes nature as partner, supported by themes of low-impact living, climate change, sustainability and social responsibility. In essence Oakwood concerns seeds...both actual and metaphorical. Sowing seeds and evolving new stories. What Oakwood is trying to aspire to and help evolve can be distilled into a couple of words, Simplicity and kindness. By simple they mean uncomplicated and by kindness, the extension of the notion of kin, in myriad directions, to include how, where and with whom we live.

A wonderful place with mature forest gardens, formal gardens, new orchards, veg garden, poultry, camping and bed & breakfast in the heart of Cornwall and accessible by bike along the off road Camel Trail.
Courses and visits, very experienced owners Pete & Val Grainger who are both highly qualified in Ecology and countryside management as well as having been practicing sustainable land management and permaculture for many years. Pete works part time as an ecologist and is an expert dipterist and Val is a retired smallholder having been on the farming and smallholding scene for many years.

We started in December 2009 with a 0.36 hectare field. It had been used as grazing for sheep for many years and once we had cleared the field of fencing and posts we started designing the layout of pathways and created a five year plan for planting. Because of our exposed situation, the first task was to plant shelter belt around all four sides of the field. We used willow on the west and south sides and edible native hedging on the north and east sides.

The overall aims of our project are:-

• To produce and distribute fruit, vegetables, nuts, herbs and seeds to friends, family and local markets
• To offer educational opportunities locally such as:-
• an introduction to the principles of permaculture
• sustainable art and craft activities
• animal/bird husbandry
• garden wildlife conservation/observation
• sustainable construction e.g. straw bale building
• designing and constructing a Forest Garden
• preparation and preservation of home grown produce

We have now applied, and been accepted, for organic status from the Soil Association and have two years “in conversion”. 

ThosePlantPeople are developing a 4 acre piece of land from an ornamental garden and grazing land into a highly productive system. Many fruit trees are now producing good crops with the understory still developing. They aim to grow as much of their own food and fuel whilst providing a haven for biodiversity. They will be guided by permaculture principles to make decisions about how to adapt the land and to pass this experience and knowledge to others. Their expert knowledge of horticulture has led to research and experiments in edible polycultures which are still evolving.