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Ross-shire gardener has ambitions to help feed the community for free


By Louise Glen

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Mairi MacPherson, Highland Seedlings, Oak Cottage, Hill of Fearn, Tain is up a free for all garden...Picture: Callum Mackay..
Mairi MacPherson, Highland Seedlings, Oak Cottage, Hill of Fearn, Tain is up a free for all garden...Picture: Callum Mackay..

INSTEAD of a community food bank giving away tins, a new idea in Fearn will see a vegetable patch with anyone allowed to help themselves.

The free food garden, just off the main street, is the idea of not-for-profit business Highland Seedlings. It aims to get more people from the village eating veggies more often

As Mairi MacPherson, who came up with the idea, explains: "We just want to make it easy for people to enjoy all the benefits of growing their own, without having to grow their own. The nearest supermarket is a bus ride away. So options for fresh vegetables can be limited for people."

Highland Seedlings is a smallholding with a vegetable seedling nursery, a kitchen garden, orchard, fruit patches, and free-ranging ducks and chicken who send seeds all over the country.

Mrs MacPherson runs the community-orientated garden business with husband Seamus.

Mairi MacPherson, Highland Seedlings, Oak Cottage, Hill of Fearn, Tain is up a free for all garden...Picture: Callum Mackay..
Mairi MacPherson, Highland Seedlings, Oak Cottage, Hill of Fearn, Tain is up a free for all garden...Picture: Callum Mackay..

Based at Oak Cottage, Mrs MacPherson said she wants people in the village to be able to help themselves to a wide range of food from the community garden, She said: "We realised that we had a wee bit of land that was covered in grass that would actually make a very nice village garden.

"People will be able to help themselves. We are hoping to grow a range of vegetables including beetroot, kale, French runner beans, parsnips, peas, rocket, spinach, turnips, leeks and lettuce. We will have a small poly tunnel and in there we would like to grow tomatoes and chillies."

Mrs MacPherson is hoping to change the world one convert at a time.

Mrs MacPherson gave up her full-time job as a lecturer in literature, history and culture due to living with ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

Part of her journey to a healthier lifestyle was making use of the third-of-an-acre of land and growing vegetables to support a vegetarian diet.

Putting her experience of gardening with mobility issues to the test, she has learned how to work around planting and growing seeds.

She continued: "People really wanted to learn about what we were doing. Out of that has grown experience days that can be booked through Air BnB.

"Over the last year we have also set up a subscription service for seeds. We take a lot of time with people who have signed up for a monthly drop of seeds, and making sure they are getting the right spot in their garden.

"People are often very surprised when we tell them of the huge range of plants we can grow up here in the north of Scotland. It is very exciting to be sending our seedlings all over the UK."


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