Fearn Free Food's vegetables and plants a big hit with Easter Ross community
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A FREE food service in Ross-Shire has hit the ground running with more than 800 plants given away since April.
Fearn Free Food, which offers free home-grown vegetables and plants from its garden in the village has even helped during the coronavirus lockdown by giving away more than 100 free vegetable bags to local people who needed them.
The garden, part of Highland Seedlings, was intended to get people thinking about growing their own – but during the lockdown has been a free source of nutritious, fresh vegetables during the travel restrictions.
Dr Mairi MacPherson, who established the garden that now boasts a polytunnel, with husband Seamus, said: “We’re absolutely delighted that our little Free Food Garden in Fearn has been so well received.
“Since April we’ve given out over 800 free plants to almost 60 folks from in and around Fearn, and we’re now able to offer a second round of free plants, all grown from seed by us here.
“For the last few weeks we’ve had a little free market stall in our driveway next to the Free Food Garden on Saturdays, and we have given out 100 salad bags as part of that. We’ve also had donations from others – rhubarb, tomato plants, and kids’ books and toys. The stall is open every Saturday from 11am-2pm, and there are free salad bags, veg and fruit that we harvest freshly in the morning. First come, first served.
“We started planning the Fearn Free Food Garden last winter, and I spent the winter knitting custom hats to raise money for it – I’ve made over 50 so far. When Covid-19 hit we decided to get a move on and built the beds, and with the help of donations and a community grant we’ve been able to buy all the materials and a new polytunnel for growing free plants and food.”
Aside from offering free plants and salad to the village the garden has also been a source of healing for Dr MacPherson, who gave up full time work as an academic at the UHI where she was the programme leader for literature, based in Inverness. After suffering from crippling migraines, Dr MacPherson spent almost two years bedbound with what has since been diagnosed as ME/CFS.
Dr MacPherson said: "We'd always gardened and tried to grow our own food, and gradually this became something I was able to do more of, and that's how Highland Seedlings started, with selling some veg plants to friends and running a few courses now and again.
"Over the course of last year I recovered enough to be able to grow plants on a larger scale, and to start hosting visits and tours for tourists, too. We look forward to welcoming visitors to the garden and on our courses in 2020, but we now won't be able to open this year as my chronic conditions put me in the 'vulnerable' category so we're staying put.
"If folks would like to support what we're doing we would love it if they could join our patreon at www.patreon.com/highlandseedlings, where I post weekly updates on what we're sowing, growing, planting, and harvesting - a weekly grow-along.
"We also sell plants at www.vegseedlings.co.uk, and we have a donation piggy at the Saturday free stall."
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