Information about growing your own food, sustainable local food production and reducing food waste along with further helpful information and resources, good for you, good for the environment.

Grow your own food

Growing your own fruit and vegetables can have many benefits including:

  • Having tasty and fresh produce
  • Being educational for children
  • Getting active in the fresh air
  • Promoting positive mental health and wellbeing
  • Saving you money
  • Better for the planet

If you don’t have a garden, you can grow pots for salad and herbs on a windowsill or if you have time you could join in some of the many community growing projects running locally. South Gloucestershire Council own and manage 350 plots across nine allotment sites and there are also many others not owned by the Council.

South Gloucestershire Council Allotments

Local organisations and initiatives

  • Grimsbury Farm is an amazing space on the edge of Bristol open to the public. Farm animals include sheep, goats, pigs, cows, donkeys and chickens. There is a café run by Brandon Trust, a playground and much more. For updates see the Farm’s Facebook page
  • Sims Hill Shared Harvest are a community supported agriculture scheme. They use natural growing methods and permaculture principles to produce high quality vegetables and support innovating social action through land-based projects.
  • The conservation volunteers provide a mixture of practical projects and family-friendly events, both during the week and at the weekends.
  • Grow Wilder – Avon Wildlife Trust’s wildlife gardening hub is on 10 acres of beautiful land demonstrating the value of nature for wildlife gardening, agriculture and wellbeing.  Workshops on food growing offered
  • Patchway Green Spaces – find different places to grow and discover
  • Street Goat – an urban goat farming cooperative, whose aim is to connect communities to sustainable food production and regenerative land management

Food in the community

Food is a great excuse to get together, whether it’s for a special occasion or not. Food can say a lot about who we are and where we come from as well as getting us talking with friends and neighbours.

  • Apple Days are a celebration of the variety of apples and the richness and diversity of landscape, ecology and culture.
  • Curry & Chaat have a simple aim: to encourage get togethers with friends, enjoy a delicious curry and raise money for the Mental Health Foundation.
  • The Big Lunch brings millions of people together across the UK to share food and fun on the first weekend in June every year.
  • Coniston Café – a community meeting place where you can enjoy good food at low prices. All profits from the café go directly back into their charity work

Food Waste

In South Gloucestershire around 1,000 tonnes of food waste is thrown away every month with non-recyclable black bin waste. Disposing of food with black bin waste costs a lot more than recycling it. Lots of energy and water goes into the production and transport of food and so making sure we eat as much of it as we can is better for the environment and reduces carbon emissions.

If you recycle your food waste using the food bins it goes to an anaerobic digestion plant which converts it into fertiliser and electricity. Find out more about recycling food waste on the South Gloucestershire Council website.

South Gloucestershire Council - Recycling Food waste

Healthy and sustainable local food

Farmers markets

Supporting local farmers and keeping food miles low, farmers’ markets provide fresh, seasonal, organic and free range produce. There is a food market in Chipping Sodbury  which is held on the 2nd Saturday and the last Thursday of every Month 9.00 am – 1.30 pm