Incredible Edible
About Incredible Edible Totnes
Incredible Edible Totnes is a community gardening initiative. We grow fruit, herbs, nuts, vegetables and edible flowers in public and unused spaces across Totnes for everyone to share.
Have you noticed as you walk around Totnes that you find little areas where there is food growing and you’re encouraged to pick it for free? Well that's us. We're a team of enthusiastic volunteers who've been busy planting and maintaining these growing sites for over 14 years!
We're always pleased to hear from keen volunteers that want to join us. Many hands make light work! Plus, the more we grow the more we can eat and share with our community.
We welcome people of all ages and backgrounds and you don't need to have any gardening knowledge or experience - we provide tools and share skills and it’s a great way to learn if you want to grow your own.
The potential output of even small spaces is huge. Whether you believe in access to land for all, relocalising our food supply and avoiding packaging, cutting down on food miles, happily overturning the supermarkets' stranglehold on our food system, or just enjoy being outside gardening with others, we'd love you to join us.
Since we started planting nut trees in March 2007 on Vire Island, we have extended our edible growing to many sites all over town and beyond, in public spaces and school grounds. Our initial aim was to plant nut trees, and as the years went by, we also planted soft fruit, herbs, edible flowers and vegetables as well. We also planted a tree nursery and forest garden in Follaton arboretum.
All the vegetable growing areas have been maintained to a good standard during the lockdowns this past year, with volunteers taking their daily exercise to the veg beds with a trowel in their pocket. In Bridgetown and Follaton Arboretum, 50 new fruit trees were planted – all socially distanced, of course. It was really helpful for local residents to discover there was fresh food available without having to queue at the supermarket and opened peoples’ eyes to what was freely available on their doorstep.
Many people have found being indoors during lockdown very hard and we are all aware that being outside, socialising and gardening are some of the best things to improve our mental health, so as we move into a new phase, if you are ready to go out, meet people safely and get some gentle exercise, please come and join us. You don’t need to make a regular commitment, just turn up when you feel like it.
Check out the many growing sites in Totnes, where we welcome local people and visitors all year round to get involved in planting and maintenance. Take a look at our events calendar to find out where we'll be and when each month.
Help in other aspects of our project, like publicity and fundraising, are welcome too. For more info about getting involved contact the TTT Office on 01803 867358 or email briony@transitiontowntotnes.org
There are five Incredible Edible sites in and around Totnes:
- Borough Park Rockery and Totnes Station
- Planters at Steamer Quay, Rowing Club beds and Longmarsh
- Bridgetown Playing Fields, Chicken Run and Upper Bridgetown
- Fernbank, Lower Collins Road
- Follaton Arboretum and Town Cemetry
We are grateful to the Lottery, Awards for All for current Incredible Edible funding.
Transition Town Totnes 