Support the planting and care of urban community orchards - providing beautiful spaces, healthy food, wildlife habitat and more!
by Brighton Permaculture Trust in Brighton, England, United Kingdom
£15000 would allow us to improve the facilities at Racehill for groups and volunteers using the site. Increase community engagement and volunteer recruitment, including hosting a community celebration event at Racehill orchard. It would also enable us to do more biodiversity monitoring and gather more volunteer and resident feedback for impact .
Brighton Permaculture Trust loves planting community orchards - we've already planted over 170 in Sussex.
This project will enable us to work with communities in Brighton, creating two new urban orchards, and enhancing our established Racehill Community Orchard.
Jenni Cresswell, our Community Orchards manager explains:
‘We are losing Traditional orchards from our landscapes across the UK and especially here in Sussex. These essential habitats will provide vital urban refuges for nature and people alike. Trees help provide us with cooler temperatures, cleaner air and reduced flooding, while also encouraging more different types of plants, insects and birds. And science says that green spaces are so important for humans, particularly in our most urban areas.’
We will be planting fruit and nut trees at Woodingdean and East Brighton Park that will grow into traditional orchards. To do this we will train local residents, showing them how to plant and care for the orchard trees. It's a great way of bringing communities together, helping people connect with nature .
Orchards are great for biodiversity, providing the perfect habitat for many insects, birds and fungi.
With your donation we will plant around 15 orchard trees at each new orchard, plus wider planting with taller native trees, so up to 95 trees in total.
Once a tree is established, it can provide a large yield of fruit year after year for decades for the community to enjoy.
Our orchards are underplanted with wildflowers to help with pollination and provide food for the insect pollinators.
We keep the grass and wildflowers in check by scything, a technique that doesn’t require any fossil fuels.
Our flagship community orchard at Racehill now has over 200 fruit and nut trees. It is teeming with wildflowers, birds and insects.
We will improve volunteer facilities (building a compost toilet, maintaining paths & benches) and lead more volunteering and training sessions there, providing opportunities for people to connect with each other and with nature.
The site is enjoyed by local residents and community groups as well as the many fabulous volunteers who help look after the orchard.
Brighton Permaculture Trust is a beacon of hope in the climate, biodiversity and food security crises. We are a charity that teaches permaculture, food growing and eco building skills through our courses, workshops and volunteering opportunities. We promote community food growing and have helped communities plant over 170 orchards in Brighton & Hove and around Sussex. We save 40 tonnes a year of locally grown fruit from going to waste through our Scrumped in Sussex project.
This project offers rewards in return for your donation.