An Interview with Michael Parker from Rooting for Andover
Rooting for Andover runs a community garden nestled in Alexandra Park Estate.
They grow a wide variety of vegetables, from beans and broccoli to courgettes and cauliflower. They also run several orchards, dotted across the estate.
Every week volunteers from the estate and beyond attend sessions where they have the opportunity to learn about gardening, harvest vegetables, and get stuck in with every aspect of the garden.
In this interview for the Andover Food Partnership, Michael Parker talks about his journey setting up the garden, and the vital role it plays in the centre of the community.
When did this all start?
During the pandemic, a couple of local gardeners wanted an allotment site over this side of town, on the north side.
Andover Town Council didn’t have anything available, but we persevered. Two councillors - Tracey Tasker and Nick Matthews - gave us so much help, they found this land for us. They said, ‘there’s not enough land for allotments, but how about setting up a community garden?’
Back in 2021 when we started, this patch was solid brambles [the brambles were probably 7-8ft high]. We had to dig out all the roots so they didn’t grow back. We thought, ‘what are we doing, are we mad?’
But as you can see the space has transformed in that time. And funnily enough, we used the brambles to make habitat for the wildlife.
What are some of the features you’re most proud of in the garden?
We’ve got an orchard, just planted it last year. Hopefully this year we’ll get some apples, pears, cherries, plums. All sorts. We planted them a few years ago so we are hoping we’ll get a small harvest.
It’s a lovely space and we’ve got the community all around us. What’s really nice is incorporating biodiversity. On the path we’ve put wood chips, and that’s providing a habitat for the colony of stag beetles. Over there, you might think that’s just a pile of twigs, but there are hedgehogs living in it.
Your Facebook page has lots of sessions which you run with the community. What sort of things do you do?
Teaching is an important part of the garden. We do all sorts really. Recently we’ve done a couple of sessions about ‘square foot gardening’. That’s an interesting idea, basically you divide up space into square feet, and get a different vegetable in each one.
It provides lots of different veg in a small space. So in a 3x3 space you can get 9 different types of vegetables. Just perfect for the modern garden. It keeps the whole system going.
We have wellbeing sessions as well. We had ten people last week and in the summer we normally have fifteen for a bit of relaxation and a chat - and about the same for our Saturday sessions.
What do you do with the produce?
We support about 25 volunteers, with fifty on our records. They tend the gardens and get all the vegetables, basically. There isn’t much growing at the moment because it’s February - only some garlic. The vegetables help to support the families of the volunteers. The 25 volunteers get anything they want and they can take it home for their dinners. Anything left over from harvest days is left at the gate and anyone from the community, we’re in Augusta Park Estate, you can come along and help themselves.
We did a harvest twice a week last year, each producing many bags of vegetables. This year we want to do more veg, we’ve been building new beds. We’ve built a raspberry bed, another one for the courgettes.
I’d say we have supported 50 families with fresh vegetables. It’s not bad for a community garden! Each month we get punnets of french beans, loads of courgettes.
We get lots more people coming to get vegetables now than at the beginning. So the impact on the community has probably been quite positive. We try to encourage people to eat seasonally - it’s much better getting fresh vegetables in season than importing from the other side of the world. There’s very little carbon footprint.
How do you think about sustainability in your work?
The climate and environment are huge themes for us. One aspect is that we have a community compost. Instead of people putting waste into the bin, we invite people from the estate to put their kitchen scraps here. This is called a hot composter. It takes about a month to make compost. Where it’s decaying it creates heat and this breaks down in 5-6 weeks. Saves the environment. Cheaper. Less landfill.
Another thing we do is participate in Britain in Bloom, a competition run by the RHS amongst community gardens, from villages, parks, smaller gardens. And we participated in the South East competition. A judge comes round and inspects how you’re doing environmentally, horticulturally, socially even. They are pretty thorough in asking about why and how you do everything. You get scored 1-5, 1 being rubbish and 5 being brilliant. The first year we get a four, which is virtually unheard of in the first year, and then last year we got the highest score of a five!
This year we’ve entered it again and we’ve entered the environmental challenge. This time they go round with a magnifying glass, and it’s about assessing the environmental impact - do you have log piles? Are you harvesting your own water? What are you doing in your community to help? So that’s guiding a lot of what we’re doing, including our bug hotels.
What’s a bug hotel?
As you can see, Trevor [a volunteer] is sawing up some wood, and that’s going to make the hotel. You glue the wood in and then it’ll be put up on a post to create a habitat for the insects. You can’t just forget about nature. The other thing is that I’d rather the insects go in there than on my cabbages.
We’ve also got a pond - it’s a fair old thing - and we got some help from the community and Andover Roundtable to build it. It’s a big hole. We don’t like using slug pellets because we don’t want to kill the wildlife. So, the frogs in the pond eat the slugs. It’s all about working with nature rather than against it.
The Andover Sustainable Food Partnership is growing and you’re very much involved. What do you hope to get out of it?
I do this because I like helping out in the community. And that’s what we all do it for. At the heart of it, it’s about the vegetables and it’s about the people involved. It’s about building relationships with schools and all the different partners.
How are you structured? Who does the office stuff?
We have Vicky, our Secretary, she writes the emails, letters, and everything else. Maureen is our Treasurer, she finds the grants and takes care of the money. I look after the volunteers and take care of the garden.
What relationships do you have with other organisations like Test Valley Borough Council (TVBC) and the NHS?
We have a good relationship with TVBC. They own the land actually, and we are continually supported by them and Kevin Harrington [Parks and Countryside Manager, TVBC] who helps us all the time.
We work with the NHS as well. We helped out in the Healthy Living project with them over at King Arthurs Hall last year, and the year before that. We turn up and help the kids out, giving them compost and pots and some vegetables. So we set our stall out, put the pots on the table, the kids come over and they dig their hand into the table. Last year we had lots of strawberry plants, we put them in the pots, and the kids took them home with them.
It’s teaching them all the things they can do in their gardens, no matter the space.
Any final words?