The Community Farm is joining forces with commissioners to promote recycling in Braddan, as Amanda Griffin explains
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Minimising waste and recycling are central to education programmes at The CommunityFarm in Braddan.
Kitchen waste is collected and fed to the worms in the wormeries to produce compost and liquid fertiliser that is used in the poly tunnels to grow fresh veg.
Green waste from the gardens and animal bedding is composted in large bins and then turned onto the gardens to grow yet more food.
The wormeries and other composting systems are used as teaching tools with primary and secondary groups in co-ordinated fork-to-fork lessons.
The farm’s inclusion learning programme helps to manage composting as part of Level 1 Horticulture Certificate training.
As a charitable project of The Children’s Centre, the farm is very careful with its use of resources; reclaiming, reusing and recycling wherever possible.
Good examples of this are the information boards around the site, made by groups of young people from reclaimed pallets.
Wooden garden planters, bird boxes, bug houses and bat houses have also been created from reclaimed wood using the farm’s workshop.
Over in the vegetable gardens plastic drink bottles are reused as garden cane toppers and bird scarers. Old wellies adorn the walls filled with flowers and herbs.
Growing areas are mulched with old coffee grounds from Noa Bakehouse and spent mushroom compost from Greeba Farm.
The paths, meanwhile, are covered in bark chip donated by tree surgeons.
Up in the farm office, the team use reclaimed desks and chairs, donated by corporate donors when they refresh their offices.
Regular forays to the reclamation areas of the island’s amenity sites provide fresh supplies of plant pots, furniture and games for the recreation room.
Even the tractors are reclaimed and upcycled, with the tractor shed now being used to restore a second Massey Ferguson, with young people learning mechanical and spraying skills under the watchful eye of farm staff.
The farm worked with the Isle of Man government’s recycling and waste minimisation officer Steve Taggart to put recycling bins and signage around the farm.
The staff, children and young people collect and recycle glass, metal and plastic.
Confidential waste paper is shredded, used as animal bedding and then composted.
School groups use waste management as a topic monitoring recycling levels and taking trips to amenity sites and the energy from waste plant, which can be seen from the farm.
New to the farm’s programme this year have been a series of workshops and short courses including composting, willow weaving, felting, bread-making and an introduction to permaculture course.
All of these use local resources and local expertise to increase levels of countryside skills and sustainable land management which tie in with the farm’s ethos of ‘reconnecting with the countryside’.
To find out more about what’s happening at The Community Farm, including alternative education programmes workshops, open afternoons and bookable children’s parties, check out The Farm blog www.thecommunityfarm.wordpress.com
Call 676076 or email farm@thechildrenscentre.org.im
