As I return to Uni, I can categorically say I’ve been living the ‘Uni life’, partying hard and getting up late, so a question I get asked a lot is, ‘are you still gardening George?’, the answer, yes, I am.

However, as I’m spending more time up in Scotland, I’ve not managed to work in the garden back home, but for over a year now, I’ve been getting stuck into Uni’s community garden.

Read more: ‘Are you still gardening George?’

The Garden

Once part of the Airthrey Estate built in late 1700’s, it’s quite a big space and whilst I’ve never seen official documentation, it feels like it formed part of a walled garden. Most of the area is taken over by the landscape and grounds maintenance dept for the University of Stirling Campus. But they’ve given us a section, the edges are a bit wilder, ‘cos we’ve not got to them yet. There’s quite a few beds, not raised beds, just where we grow things. There’s trees, fruit brushes, a small pond, greenhouse, polytunnel and lots of paths, which we’re trying to widen, flatten and generally make more accessible.

The setting of the garden and surrounding area is stunning. There’s Hermitage Woods in the hills above, a really lovely deciduous forest full of old ruins. Above that you’ve got the big basalt hills of Dumyat, with all the pale grey crags dominating the landscape. Across, you’ve got the ruins of an old church, kept as a folly. Looking back towards Stirling, you’ve got the Wallace Monument silhouetted against the sky, with the Airthrey Loch beneath you. Whilst you’re digging away, you stand up and sometimes catch your breath as you gaze out on such a beautiful landscape, honest it’s like a mini-Scotland.

Sessions are weekly, but as it’s an open garden you can literally go when you want, you can just grab the shed key and read a book, do a bit of weeding, a bit of digging. It’s for everybody, you might message the Group Chat (What’s App) and say, ‘I’m going up in an hour, anyone fancy joining me?’ and being student-led you can enjoy the freedom and appreciate the fact that it brings people together. Like the time on a really sunny day last year, I was a bit worse for wear after a heavy night and undecided about what to do. I went over to the garden, I didn’t really have a plan, so had a mooch about, found some wooden boards we were using for the raised beds, so I straightened them up, put ‘em back and it was just 2 hours in the sun and I felt a whole lot better.

Gabi is the sustainability lead for the Student Union, he runs the green activities on campus, which includes the community garden. He’s a fantastic motivator, has a great attitude to everything, he sorts stuff out, including the boring (but essential) paperwork, he’s just a really decent bloke as well. And he’s just asked me to be a Garden Lead, which will see me plan & run my own sessions on the garden, which is cool.

Students, gardening, that’s not very rock & roll???

Well, it’s a good hangover cure, I’ll say that! It motivates you to get you out of bed, that sense of freedom from exams and stress and it’s deffo a way to decompress, have a laugh, make mates that you’re not necessarily partying with. It offers a place to socialise in a healthy environment. I’d say, it’s the one thing that’s given me the most pleasure at uni. And the people I’ve met through gardening, we have this shared interest in the garden, it brings us together.

The positives

It’s a student garden, on a Uni campus, led by students and a lot of Uni life is about being sat on a laptop, reading a book, looking at a scientific document, whatever, the garden allows you to get involved in a physical activity, which gives your brain a bit of a rest. You can still discuss things, that you may have read in an article for example, but you’re not blowing your brain up in the library trying to focus! It’s great for your physical health too, as you’re using every muscle in your body, walking round, lifting things, bending down, carrying stuff, but in a fun, relaxing way.

The garden provides a connection to where our food comes from; being a student, it’s really important for food sustainability and if we’ve got too much of a crop we leave it in the community fridge. It’s also important as a connection to nature – if you’re having a good time in nature, you’re more likely to protect it. There’s educational benefits too, even if it’s not necessarily connected to what you’re studying, you can still learn something relevant.

What we’ve been doing

Planting a wildflower verge at the back of the garden, cleaned the pond and found little pea clams, widened paths, planted onions, garlic, potatoes, turned over the compost, general weeding and we’ve put down donated sheep wool on the beds to insulate the soil. One of the loveliest things at each session is someone always picks something to eat and share, such as the golden raspberries, which is always a great treat.

There’s one-off activities too

An apple picking & pressing session on the site of the old community garden, before this one was created, there’s a little orchard there now and we picked a fair few wheelbarrows full and made it into apple juice. We did a bird box building session on there, which was really well attended, maybe even too well attended!! One of the nicest things was a potluck session, where everyone bought a dish to share, I made a tabbouleh with freekeh and wild garlic and we sat in the garden and ate that, it was like the lunch of dreams.

Problems

There’s this grass, Pendulous Sedge that just grows massive and is everywhere in the garden, it must have been introduced at some point, that’s a bit of a pain, just because it’s hard to dig out and it spreads very quickly. We don’t have access to water, apart from water butts, so things like topping up the pond is a bit of an issue, and we don’t have a hose either, so watering plants in general can take a long time too. Access to materials, there’s not much money around, but we’re students and have to be resourceful; but we do get the odd donation – pallets, wood chippings, that kind of thing. The grounds dept are really generous too and let us have access to their compost heap.

Of course, time is always an issue. We do all this work in the tougher months and then when we should be enjoying ‘the fruits of our labour’ in the summer, lots of people have gone home and then there’s not a lot of people there to look after the garden either.

I’m a lucky man

Lots of people comment on my socials about how lucky I am to have this facility, whilst studying at Uni and I agree we are very fortunate to have it. I strongly believe a community garden/outdoor space should be in every school, college and university; one that is led by the students, bringing like-minded people together, people who want to have that space, it’s really important.

The biggest benefit I get from the garden is something that grounds me to the outdoor world, I can sit comfortably and socialise and see the changing of the seasons. I can see what I study in the plant life, in the invertebrate around me, so whilst my studies take me to researching volcanoes, tsunamis and deforestation, the garden brings me back to earth more than anything.