Manchester bowling green converted into an urban farm to provide food for the Covid response

The Platt Fields Market Garden project is the creation of Jo, Sam and Mike, the co-founders of MUD. They have been developing the space as a community garden over the last three years with help from hundreds of volunteers. Since the covid outbreak the founders have focussed their attention on food production and distribution to help with the emergency response.

“We are seeing a lot of people signing up to the veg box scheme that are from vulnerable groups and need access to food” said Jo one of the founders of Manchester Urban Diggers. “We provide a safe collection point that is outdoors and provide the very highest quality produce grown right here in Manchester.”

The boxes include seven types of seasonal vegetables and herbs and are available to order online for collection or delivery. The boxes are available as a one-off purchase or weekly, bi-weekly or monthly no-strings subscription.

MUD are also working in collaboration with Buzz, Greater Manchester Mental Health’s NHS Foundation Trust, to provide mini kitchen garden kits to those in isolation across the city who are suffering with poor mental health during this time. The kits are accompanied by online tutorials.

Good to Grow  (the new name for the Big Dig) is an online platform to support food growing in the UK, run by Sustain and Sustainable Food Places. The Good to Grow Network is all about getting people involved in their local community garden. You can register your garden to the Good to Grow Network for free to promote your garden locally to volunteers and other organisations, use the online Harvest-ometer and all the other functions and take part in co-ordinated events such as Good to Grow Day.