Community gardens are vital hubs that foster connection, sustainability, and resilience within neighbourhoods. They bring people together, encourage healthy lifestyles, and provide access to fresh, locally grown food. Us Seed Sisters, believe in the power of grassroots initiatives to create lasting change. Our mission is simple: We cultivate confidence through educational tools and lighthearted inspiration, connecting people to their health and local herbal medicines while supporting grassroots community growing to create empowered and resilient communities. We’re proud to support and highlight projects like this community and medicinal garden, which embodies these values and promotes a thriving, self-sustaining future.
A story of connection by Klaudia Van Gool
On the edge of a Cornish village near Bodmin Moor, a group of people are working hard to create a place of connection and learning for building resilience for the times to come. Tregovenek – ‘a place of hope’ was established in 2022 as a Community Benefit Society (CBS) to create a place where people could get involved to learn about the growing of food, and to experience community. The site has an 8-acre field, a bungalow with a large garden and some barns, along with a community and medicinal garden.
We have a vision of:
“A small, abundant farm and gathering space that has the health and wellbeing of the local community, the land and its wildlife at the heart. A place where we will connect, learn and work together to discover what it is we each have to offer to help build a better, fairer world for generations to come.”
After a miraculous agreement of the owners to sell and finding enough loans to buy the place, a small group of dedicated people set to work to establish the nitty gritty (policies, values, working groups, basic infrastructure). We now have a mix of dedicated people with a variety of skills and experience. We use the sociocracy model both for organising ourselves and for decision making to make sure everyone is heard and included and that we work efficiently. We also sorted out covered space in a barn for meetings, tools and tea making. 2025 will hopefully see the launch of a share offer to put Tregovenek truly into community ownership.
Initially, a permaculture design was done for the whole site with a small group of dedicated people, who surveyed the site and juggled the information into a cohesive design. This gave us a bit of a working plan. We focused on getting the bungalow habitable so that there would be both an income and people on the site. We started monthly work parties that have tackled a variety of jobs. This increased last year to weekly volunteer mornings, which has really helped with establishing the community garden. The bungalow annex was rented in exchange for project management by Hayley Rogers, which is when things really speeded up. She set up a crowdfunder which got us some much-needed money and a variety of events and workshops have been hosted including workshops for the local primary school children.
The Community Garden, previously part of the bungalow garden, has become a key focus as it is a more accessible location and size than the full 8 acre field for now. The crowdfunder has enabled more structural parts to be completed and includes a circular, hard-surface meeting space, paths, growing beds, wheelchair accessible beds, seating, a children’s play area, compost education area, and some structures like a shed, greenhouse and a compost toilet.
The Community and Medicinal Garden
One area has been dedicated as a medicinal herb garden. As a past student of the Sensory Herbalism Apprenticeship Course, I was inspired by the homework to establish a community herb garden in 2018-19. So far, I have been updating and maintaining an established herb garden at a permaculture, educational, retreat centre on Dartmoor, called High Heathercombe Centre. Many groups visit there so the herb garden can touch many. I also established a small community herb garden in West Cornwall at an environmental education project, called Plan-it Earth, which has led to holding herbal workshops there (next one is about Winter Wellness).
The community and medicinal herb garden at Tregovenek was planted in August, mostly with plants I had grown in my herb garden. The beds were established relatively quickly by mulching with cardboard and bought-in compost. To decide what to plant, I was guided by the Sensory Herbalism recommended list of herbs.
Some of these are:
- Roses (money donated by someone who attended a herb workshop and wanted to give something back)
- Marshmallow
- Red Clover
- Peppermint
- Elecampane (I first met this plant on the apprenticeship and it has become a close companion that I like to share)
- Wormwood
- Yarrow
- St. John’s Wort
- Verbena
- Valerian
- Sage
and many more. Annuals, such as Calendula, Oats and Chamomile, will be sown in the spring and planted in time for our grand opening on the 5th of April 2025.
I discovered community herb gardens can be such a beautiful interface between people and planet: connecting people directly with the Earth by planting, feeling, seeing and smelling the herbs, learning how they grow through their different stages, tending and harvesting. Using the herb garden as a venue for herbal workshops connects the plants to the people. The making of medicines starts by getting to know the plants that will be in the medicine, and so brings the plants into their heart, mind, body. Using the medicine then maintains the plant connection at home.
About Klaudia and Tregovenek
Klaudia is a permaculture teacher and final year Herbal Medicine student. She loves growing, foraging, harvesting and making medicines and teaching others.
07816 841129 – klaudiavangool@gmail.com
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