New Shoreham urban garden project aims to provide fresh organic produce for foodbanks

Mary Murphy, project leader, wanted an alternative for people who cannot manage to work on the land for a variety of reasons, having been inspired by her City & Guilds course in practical horticulture skills and working on a kitchen garden in Normandy.

She launched MaryGold Grows Community Interest Company in May as a small urban organic garden project where people can learn to grow food in containers. She is now ready to take it to the next level, on a much larger site.

A gallery show of photographs promoting the project was officially opened at Tom Foolery in Shoreham High Street on Tuesday and will run until October 12, with pictures on sale for £5 to raise money for MaryGold Grows.

Mary, who has fibromyalgia and arthritis, said: "I set it up because though there are schemes where people can learn to grow food, they are all based on allotments. We have grown everything in containers and even created a container pond.

"I want to get lots more volunteers and grow lots more food in containers and give all of that, all organic, to one of the community foodbanks so that they can have fresh, organic food. It's not happening at the moment here, so I'm happy to say we will be unique."

The first growing season, from May to September, was completed in the garden of The Circular Space, in Middle Road, and Mary is now awaiting confirmation of a new piece of land for the project, where she will be able to have a polytunnel, four giant troughs, a huge fruit cage, water butt and a teaching shed.

She started with three clients, who were awarded certificates at the opening of the gallery show.

Mary said: "One of the things I wanted to do was to tap into their creative abilities and use our project camera every week that we met. Out of 182 images, we reduced it down to 24 for the show."

To express an interest in taking part in MaryGold Grows, telephone Mary on 07587 965145 or email [email protected]