27 Sep, 2022 Community Creations Products in use

Grow 73: busy growing produce, building their community and hosting part of the relay to COP27 in Egypt

April 2021 saw Grow 73’s first order from Glasgow Wood. Almost 18 months later, they’ve continued to build a strong community garden where all generations can learn together.

And as an amazing example of a charity making a positive impact people and planet, they’re taking part in the extraordinary 7,767km, non-stop relay from Glasgow, Scotland (COP26 host) to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt (COP27 host), all in the name of climate action.

 Grow 73, community garden in Rutherglen

ABOUT GROW 73

Grow 73 is a charity based in Rutherglen, in South Lanarkshire. Their aim is to support local people of all ages and abilities to grow their own produce, learn how to lead more sustainable lives, and to support biodiversity.

Through shared gardening activities, environmental improvements and events, they aim to bring together diverse groups across the age and ethnic spectrum to support and learn from each other as well as improve the health and wellbeing of the community and make Rutherglen the place to be.

And to help them achieve their goals, they’ve been using lots of reclaimed timber and some of our reclaimed scaffold board products. See below to see what they’ve been up to…

THE BEE LINE PROJECT

Little green oases scattered throughout the City of Glasgow

In Spring of last year, Grow 73 made a purchase of reclaimed oak whisky casks (22 planters and 2 whole in total!) to be used as part of their ongoing project, the Bee Line Project.

Using these barrel planters they created little green oases of nectar rich plants for our amazing pollinators to feed on as they travel around the city. Linking the barrels together, they estimate to have covered an area of around 6.2km.

 the bee line project, reclaimed whisky barrel planter

Pollinating more than just plants

Through establishing these pollination stations, they also created long lasting partnerships with schools, sports clubs, health centres, nurseries and other like-minded organisations. The plan is to continue expanding the Bee Line with more stations, gaining more connections and partnerships along the way.

With the help of some publicity from a special Countryfile episode, we imagine this definitely helped their cause. One of the barrel planters was even signed by their presenter, Charlotte Smith!

Learn more about the Plant Britain Spring Special on the BBC iPlayer website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000wg2g

 planting out reclaimed whisky barrel planter with flowers

DISUSED BOWLING GREENS TO COMMUNITY GARDENS

Through a land asset transfer from South Lanarkshire council, Grow 73 have more than 8,000 cubic meters to transform.

March 2022 saw Grow 73’s biggest purchase: 13 raised beds (in various sizes) and 45 Scottish spruce sleepers to assemble some of their own raised beds! These were all for a piece of newly acquired land through an asset transfer from South Lanarkshire council.

 reclaimed scaffold board raised beds being delivered and being filled with soil

3 disused bowling greens means that they have a pretty big transformation project on their hands!

Below you’ll see the progress on their Scottish spruce sleeper raised beds, which offer a slightly chunkier and robust aesthetic compared to our traditional raised beds made from reclaimed scaffold boards.

 building raised beds from reclaimed scottish spruce sleepers

Head to their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter if you’re interested in staying up to date with their journey.

 launching Buzzfest 2022, reclaimed scaffold board raised beds

BUZZFEST 2022

Lanarkshire’s first ever biodiversity festival

In June, over 600 people turned up to Buzzfest, and so did the weather! These photos show some of the team planting the first young plants. And thanks to the great summer we had, just over 6 weeks later they were able to begin taking their first harvest.

 

Eugenie, Grow 73’s main co-ordinator said:

“It’s great to see the insect life thriving around the plants, especially pollinators and ladybirds at all stages of development. Ladybird larvae have a huge appetite for greenfly and blackfly – pest control with absolutely no pesticides.”

 reclaimed scaffold board raised beds with plants and vegetables

The overall aim of Buzzfest was to encourage residents to learn more about biodiversity and reduce loneliness within the community.

With this in mind and lots of fun activities available on the day, it definitely seemed to be a success amongst the many friends and family who came along to the festival. There was live music, storytelling and face-painting. It was also a great collaboration with other local businesses, individuals and organisations.

Here you can see our reclaimed whisky barrels in action in a whole range of ways!

 people at Buzzfest 2022 in Lanarkshire, reclaimed whisky barrel table with plant

As summer rolled on, they continued to plant more and develop the huge space they had acquired.

They have a big family of volunteers and run twice-weekly growing sessions, and it seems like they’re going from strength to strength. Here you can see they planted cherry trees, kindly donated by one of their volunteers, in some of our reclaimed whisky barrel planters.

 reclaimed whisky barrel planters, scaffold board raised beds

RUNNING OUT OF TIME RELAY

And now as we move into Autumn there’s absolutely no slowing them down!

Grow 73 are supporting an extraordinary 7,767km non-stop relay from Scotland to Egypt. It’s a journey which carries a climate change message from young people to the decision makers at COP27.

As the COP26 host of 2021, a handful of Glasgow locations are hosting the beginning of the relay. There’s 732 individual stages of the relay, running day and night for 38 days across 18 countries. Grow 73 are stage 5!

 

Check out the full route from Glasgow to Sharm el-Sheikh and see if it comes near to where you live.

 COP 27 running out of time climate relay map

So on Friday 30th of September from 4PM, Grow 73 want you to join them and show your support!

The COP27 baton will be at Grow 73 in Overtoun Park at 4.20PM, where the media will be given chance to have a look around their amazing work.

Then at 5.15PM, they will resume normal programming for their AGM, followed by food & drinks at Overtoun Bowling Club at 5.30PM.

They welcome you to come and bring your children, bring your instruments, and show some support if you have chance.

 

Follow Grow 73’s work on Facebook and Twitter, and get in touch with Eugenie if you’d like to get involved.

eugenie@grow73.org
07834 240086

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