Transition Keynsham’s Veg Plot in the Park is celebrating its 10 year anniversary next month. The green fingered volunteers will be marking this milestone with cake on 3rd September, starting at 2pm on the plot, which is beside the café in Keynsham Memorial Park. Everyone’s welcome to come along and share cake and the bounty from the plot, and find out a bit more about this fantastic community initiative.

For a decade, volunteer gardeners have been meeting up once a month to sow, weed and grow fruit and veg for everyone to share. When they first took the space over there was an awful lot of work to do. As well as digging over and preparing the soil and rooting out persistent weeds, they braved bad weather and setbacks such as loss of tools and one or two instances of vandalism.

But these challenges haven’t deterred them from carrying on, and anyone who wandered past it at the Music Festival would have noticed an abundance of fruit and veg, including a majestic artichoke towering over everything, available to harvest.

There are thousands of community veg plots just like ours up and down the country. They exist to give people access to green spaces, the joy of growing and eating your own food and the pleasure of company. In keeping with that spirit, our veg plot’s volunteers are friendly and welcoming, and have a wealth of gardening knowledge between them.

There’s a proven link between good physical and mental health and being out in green spaces. And of course, it’s well known that connecting with others in your community is also beneficial to health and wellbeing. We’re really lucky to have such a successful and accessible veg plot in Keynsham, which is actively open to new volunteers.

If you’ve ever fancied growing your own, but aren’t sure how, why not pop along to the celebration on 3rd September, have a chat and a piece of cake. You never know, it might just be the start of a new green fingered adventure!

This article was first published in the Keynsham Voice – August 2022

Photo: taken day 1!