To volunteer at our Hackney market gardens, email us to join the waiting list. Our grower Sophie will be in touch when a slot is available. You might also want to check out Capital Growth's list of London gardens that usually welcome volunteers.
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If you are interested in organic growing and want to make a difference, come and join our regular volunteer work team. Volunteers are essential in helping us to grow food in the heart of the city.
*** If you want to volunteer at our Dagenham Farm, see separate page.***
Anyone who is interested in gardening and growing can volunteer - no previous experience is necessary! It's a great way of improving your growing skills and meeting other local people while making a real contribution to Growing Communities' aim of setting up practical, long-lasting alternatives to the current food system. IN pre-Covid years, over 100 volunteers worked with us on the sites. The volunteers work with Growing Communities' growers to help produce Hackney Salad and other things at our market gardens in Hackney. The produce is sold through our organic fruit and vegetable bag scheme and through some shops and restaurants.
To volunteer at our Hackney market gardens, email us to join the waiting list. Our grower Sophie will be in touch when a slot is available. If you are volunteering for the first time, please come along to the site at 10am - speak to the grower and they will take you through a short health and safety talk and tell you where everything is (tools, toilets etc). Please tell us if you have any health problems or allergies and if there is anything in particular you would like to learn from your volunteering experience with us. We can then tailor work tasks to suit you. We will also get you to fill in a short form which we need to do so we can contact you about any changes to garden opening times. Note that we have lunch about 1pm and that Tuesday afternoons are quite busy with all the harvesting going on, so not the best time to start volunteering.
Our sites are open for volunteering from February till November on Mondays and Tuesdays, but are sometimes closed over holiday periods. Check here before coming to the sites during school holidays or on bank holidays.
Opening times from February 2022:
Mondays 10am till 4pm at Springfield Park
Tuesdays 10am till 4pm at Clissold Park
Our other sites are not currently open for volunteering.
We are not able to offer weekend volunteering as our grower works part time.
All the sites are on the map below. The Allens Gardens site is a little hidden! You'll find us through the gates between the flats on the corner of Bethune Road and Manor Road. It might look like a private entrance but go through the gate and you'll find us on the right just along the path. There's a sign on the gate. Our Springfield Park site is 100 metres to the north of the Springfield Park cafe at the White Lodge. The Clissold Park site is next to the birds (look out for the polytunnel).
Below is a map of our sites. From left to right: Clissold Park, Allens Gardens, Springfield Park.
