Milton Food Hub has its main base in Milton Community Garden, where most of the food growing activities are happening. However, the food hub operates across several community venues to offer fresh fruit and vegetables, classes and workshops, and hosts and participates in community events.
We are always looking for volunteers in the following areas: gardening, landscaping, publicity in the community, cookery, Fruit & Veg Barra. No previous experience needed! Have a look below at our various activities, and feel free to get in touch if you are interested.
‘Like’ us on Facebook to keep up to date with our activities and events:
www.facebook.com/miltonfoodhub
| Locations of Milton Fruit & Vegetable Barras | ||
| Day | Where | Times |
| Tuesday | Scaraway Nursery, 24 Shapinsay Street, Milton, G22 7JN | 2:15pm – 4:00pm |
| Milton Campus / Glasgow Life 204 Liddesdale Road, Milton, G22 7BX | 2.30pm – 3.45pm | |
| Wednesday | St Monica’s Nursery & Primary School 200 Liddesdale Road, Milton, G22 7QX (term time only) | 8:30am – 9:30am |
| Milton Community Garden/St Andrew’s Church Liddesdale Square, Milton, G22 7BT | 10:00am–12:00pm | |
Milton Community Garden
Milton Community Garden is a location for our community – it is your garden to enjoy and get involved in! Based in Liddesdale Square, the garden is a wildlife-friendly place for young and old people to enjoy, meet new people and come to learn new skills related to the garden and food. Garden participants and volunteers are involved in influencing session planning and growing as well as benefiting from training in all aspects of growing food. The Food Initiative’s experienced gardeners and landscapers are there to support the activities in the garden, and volunteers are encouraged to take on leadership roles.
Throughout the year we run workshops and events – and there are fantastic sessions available for children to get involved with! Keep your eyes peeled on our website and social media pages to stay updated on new courses and workshops. Activities in Milton Community Garden & Food Hub include food growing, composting, upcycling, landscaping, joinery, building and family-friendly events.
Adult drop-in sessions
Whether you are a skilled gardener or are simply curious to try something new, come along to our drop-in sessions where we work together. Areas of work include gardening, construction, landscaping and creative projects.
When? Tuesdays, Wednesdays & Thursdays 10am – 3.30pm
The People’s Shed Upcycling Workshops during the Wednesdays drop-in sessions offer you the space and materials to build your own small furniture items from upcycled materials, or to bring along your DIY project. Why not try something new and learn some new woodworking techniques in friendly company?
We run free Grow Your Own sessions where we will teach you everything there is to know about growing your own fruit and vegetables. We will cover an array of topics including: getting to know your soil, seed sowing, what to grow, where and when, composting and much more. The sessions will take place both indoors and outdoors
with hands on demonstrations taking place in the garden.
We also run other workshops – in the past these included Sustainable Building Workshops, Smoothie Bike Building, Willow Weaving and more.
For information and updates about drop-in sessions and upcoming workshops, please email Svenja: gardens@ngcfi.org.uk
Youth Gardening
We have many activities available for little ones interested in learning more about gardening and getting outdoors. Organised and led by our Youth Gardener, Tracy, there are several great groups children can get involved in.
Are you aged between 5 and 9 years old? Interested in learning all about gardening?
Head along to Milton Community Garden in Liddesdale Square every Wednesday from 3:15pm – 5:15pm to learn all about: seed sowing and planting, what and how to compost, watering and weeding and growing your own food. A perfect reason to get outdoors, learn something new and get muddy!
For more information or to sign up please contact Tracy Galloway, Youth Gardener t: 0141 558 2500 or e: youthgardens@ngcfi.org.uk
Milton Memorial Garden
In listening to local people’s needs for a place to remember lost loved ones, NGCFI gave over part of the community garden area for the purpose of a Memorial Garden. Milton has few such amenity spaces and we successfully secured a Big Lottery Fund, Community Spaces grant to invest further in the current garden.
The official opening of Milton Memorial Garden was held on 9 September 2015 with Cabinet Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, Richard Lochhead (pictured above) in attendance to declare the garden open to the community. A lot of time and effort has gone into making the Memorial Garden the tranquil location residents have become so fond of with work taking place during the winter of 2014. Thrilled with the response for the garden we are keen to see more people involved in a Friends of Milton Memorial Garden group to support the garden now and into the future.
If you would like to get involved, please contact gardens@ngcfi.org.uk
Cookery
As mentioned in the ‘What we do’ section, NGCFI delivers cookery course in Milton. They can be between four to six weeks long with classes running for up to two hours. Some courses are run in partnership with local organisations whilst others are open to all.
Our fantastic cookery classes run several times in a year to help transform you into the next Jamie Oliver! The sessions lasting six weeks take place around Milton and are a great way to learn more about healthy eating; making new recipes and delicious food; understanding what fruit and vegetables are in season and how to cook on a budget. The classes are always extremely successful and you will get to eat all the yummy food you make in class, bonus!
The NGCFI Pop-Up Café is a moment in your week where you and your friends can share with joy a cup of tea or coffee, cake, lemonade, crumble and/or fruit compote. The café, held in Milton Community Garden, is open to everyone and currently runs on Wednesdays & Thursdays from 10.30am – 2.30pm.
Other areas of work in Milton
From October 2014, NGCFI, Love Milton and others are supporting ‘Milton Talks’ to deliver a six month community empowerment project. It facilitates a community-led questionnaire of Milton locals which is conducted and analysed by local residents. The survey will be led by NGCFI and LoveMilton staff and volunteers and other Milton based organisations are invited as partners too.
The project facilitates local residents to ‘look, analyse and act’ on the issues which they feel are most important to their lives and area. A partnership of Milton-based organisations will be able to offer support for the actions that residents wish to take. NGCFI will focus particularly on issues to do with food and health and other community-related activities. It will also provide NGCFI an opportunity to engage the local community in creating a strategy for the piece of land adjacent to the community garden. We believe that the findings of the survey will help the work of many agencies in the area. Glasgow City Council’s Canal Area Partnership has funded a sessional worker to support the process.
You can download the full report here: milton-talks-report-oct-2016
Staff team:
Liz Cotton, Project Co-ordinator (Gardens)
Susan Miller, Food Hub Activator
Marie McInnes, Community Engagement Officer
Tracy Galloway, Youth Gardener
Chris Woods, Community Landscaper & Builder
Tina Duff, Community Composter
Veronica Shields, Community Gardener
For volunteering enquiries, contact Michael Malcolmson our Volunteer Co-ordinator, m: 07476141500 e: volunteer@ngcfi.org.uk
Location: Milton Community Garden, Liddesdale Square, Glasgow G22 7BT
To find us in Milton click the link below
We gratefully acknowledge the support of our funders, the Big Lottery, Climate Challenge Fund and BBC Children In Need, and of Glasgow City Council, who have granted NGCFI a 25 year lease on the site.