And with it, our thoughts turn to seedlings, flowers and all the possibilities in our own back gardens. That’s where Town Grown comes in.

Town Grown is a food growing network working across Hastings, St Leonards and the surrounding areas. Established in 2022 as an offshoot of Transition Town Hastings, Town Grown was created to champion food growing as a response to rising food costs, environmental concerns and a growing public interest in local food production.

The purpose of Town Grown is to build a network of local people involved in growing food, from allotment holders and window-box gardeners to community groups and small-scale professional producers.

The initiative has been needs-led through consultation with local people. Through conversations and feedback with people, the group has identified where and how people are growing food and the types of support that interests them.This feedback has informed Town Grown’s programme of workshops, seed swaps, talks and farm visits and laid the foundation for its two key projects: Our Town is an Orchard and Edible Open Gardens.

OUR TOWN IS AN ORCHARD

Launched on 21 September 2022, Our Town is an Orchard invited people to plant fruit trees in their own gardens and community spaces and to register them on a shared online map.

The idea was simple: rather than seeking a single large site for a community orchard, often difficult to secure and maintain, the campaign encouraged individuals to plant trees wherever they were able, creating a “virtual orchard” across the town.

The campaign ran from the Autumn 2022 to the Spring 2023. During the campaign more than 150 new fruit trees were planted and mapped. To put this into perspective, that number of trees would equate to approximately 1.5 acres of orchard if planted on a single site. With modest additional funding from the Transition Network, Town Grown provided guidance on choosing suitable trees, free pruning workshops and donated Sussex heritage apple varieties to selected community sites.

Our Town is an Orchard helped embed the idea of fruit trees as long-term food infrastructure within the community. Trees continue to be added to the map, extending the project’s legacy beyond its initial campaign window.

EDIBLE OPEN GARDENS

Edible Open Gardens (EOG) is their second major project and takes place in June each year. It was developed in response to strong community interest in visiting local food-growing sites and learning directly from experienced growers.

Local food-growing gardens and small farms open their gates to the public for a weekend, allowing visitors to see different approaches to growing food in action. The guiding principle is that practical learning is most powerful when people can observe real gardens, speak with growers and experience productive spaces first-hand.

In 2025, Edible Open Gardens featured twenty-six gardens, welcoming nearly 900 visitors. The event has proven to be both educational and unifying. Visitors report gaining inspiration, practical ideas and renewed enthusiasm for growing food, while gardeners value the opportunity to share knowledge and connect with others. Planning is underway to run Edible Open Gardens again this June.

TALKS

Thanks to support from the Lund Trust and the High Weald National Landscape Partnership, Town Grown is kicking off the new growing season with a mini-series of talks at Hastings Contemporary, leading up to the weekend of open gardens in June.

Their two sold-out sessions held in early March focused on soil health and no-dig approaches to vegetable growing. A further event on Sunday 29 March, Edible abundance: ten best berries for your garden ecosystem, will explore the best berries to grow in your garden. ickets are still available.

Local berry grower and permaculture teacher Anna Locke (Permacultureanna) will explore the role of berry crops in sustainable food systems; resilient powerhouses of nutrition and garden ecology.

She will be sharing her experience of growing berries, the crucial role they play in her permaculture orchard’ ecosystem, as well as creative ways to use and preserve them.

You will learn how to grow and propagate various berry varieties, low maintenance perennials perfect for your garden or allotment.

For more info about Town Grown, Our Town is an Orchard and Open Edible Gardens visit towngrown.co.uk Due to limited capacity booking is essential, tickets: £5 per person and available online through ticket tailor

Last month we featured a story on the allotments of Hastings, this month we are delighted to share news of an upcoming weekend that focuses on edible gardens across the town.

On 28 and 29 June 2025, local food growers will open up their gardens and spaces to visitors. Edible Open Gardens brings together local food growers and curious visitors for a weekend of inspiration and knowledge-sharing. Funded by The Chalk Cliff Trust and organised by Town Grown, this year’s event will highlight the creativity and resilience of food growers in and around Hastings and St Leonards.

Edible Open Gardens showcases everything from compact domestic plots to thriving commercial enterprises with people from across Hastings opening up spaces including guerilla gardens, front & back gardens, allotments, community gardens and smallholdings to the general public. The weekend provides a rare opportunity to meet local growers, explore diverse gardening techniques and discover how even the smallest space can yield an abundance of fresh produce. For those of you with plans to grow your own food, you’ll find inspiration and advice on how others have made it work on small scraps of land, gardens and allotments.

Launched in 2022 in response to rising food costs and environmental concerns, Town Grown has been working to support food sovereignty and biodiversity through talks, workshops, and community networking. As Anna Locke, permaculture author and founding member, explains: “Town Grown is about sharing our collective knowledge and passion to empower more people to grow their own food.”

The Edible Open Gardens event will kick off with a launch event on the evening of Friday 13 June at The Compound. On the evening you will be able to pick up a handy map of the Hastings gardens and spaces taking part. Food and drink from local producers will be on sale, and guests are welcome to bring a bottle.

Launch event: Friday 13 June, 6.00 – 8.30pm The Compound, 161 Bexhill Rd, Hastings, St Leonards-on-sea TN38 8BG Edible Open Gardens Weekend 28 29 June. For more info, attend the launch event or visit towngrown.co.uk. Alternatively, pick up a free map from Wonderfill, 35 King’s Road, St. Leonards. 

On the 1 & 2 July, a diverse mix of food growing projects, ranging from compact domestic gardens right up to established commercial enterprises, will be hosting visitors for a weekend of discovery and inspiration. The aim of the initiative is to encourage more people to grow more of their own food. 

The event is coordinated by Town Grown, a Transition Town Hastings project launched in early 2022 amid growing concerns about food sovereignty, spiraling food prices and the biodiversity crisis. Since its launch, Town Grown has been hosting free talks, workshops and guides, aiming to encourage more people to grow more of their own fresh produce, regardless of space, experience and resources. 

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN IS TO SEE HOW IT’S DONE

Edible Open Gardens was inspired by the popularity of trips, coordinated by Town Grown, to local farms and orchards that gave visitors a chance to meet and learn from experienced growers with expansive plots. This new event involves a greater variety in scale: large local enterprises along with smaller domestic gardens, guerilla plots and permaculture projects in pockets of underused green spaces around the town.

Anna Locke, Permaculture author and a founding member of Town Grown says: “There is a huge amount of talent and a passion for food growing in our town that we want to celebrate with this event; and to create an opportunity for growers to share their knowledge and experience with those either currently involved or interested in growing their own food.”

A total of eighteen different venues are taking part, and there’s a chance to meet the growers, talk about their project and learn from their experience. 

Hopefully, Edible Open Gardens, supported this year by Sussex Community Foundation, will become an annual event to promote access to affordable local fresh fruit and vegetables.

Times and locations for all venues taking part can be found on the Town Grown website: towngrown.co.uk.

Here are just some of the highlights to look out for over the weekend:

Stonelynk Organics 

Battery Hill, Fairlight, Saturday 10am-1pm

Nestled in the Stonelynk Valley, five miles east of Hastings, is Stonelynk Organics, a commercial vegetable garden that has been providing the local area with organic vegetables since 2018. 

Certified by the Soil Association, founders Hélène Maerschalck and Stephen Atkinson farm in ways that are gentle to the local ecosystem and respectful of natural processes. This means they use no artificial products and very little machinery, leaving nature to do what it does best. 

They grow a huge variety of seasonal salad leaves and vegetables which they sell directly from the farm and through local veg box deliveries. 

Plot and Pantry on the Farm 

Upper Lidham Hill, North Lane, Guestling, Sunday 1-4pm

Penny Foxwell uses her smallholding in Guestling to host year-round courses and workshops, sharing her passion and twelve years’ experience of self-sufficient food growing. 

Describing Plot and Pantry as “two halves of a whole”, Penny grows an impressive quantity and variety of fresh produce on site, then harvests and preserves foods to be enjoyed throughout the year. 

The smallholding is abundantly productive but is also a space dedicated to the wellbeing of people and planet as Penny delights in sharing how living sustainably and close to nature has transformed all aspects of her life. 

Lion’s Den Mushroom Farm 

6-8 Burgess Road, Hastings, Saturday 3-4pm

The duo behind Lion’s Den are Masterchef semifinalist Ollie and West-Hill born singer-songwriter Lauren. Their commitment to zero waste food systems runs throughout all ventures past and present including an award-winning pub, pop-up restaurants and a new café in the pipeline.

Lion’s Den has turned a shipping container into a mushroom farm, growing organic Shiitake, Oyster and Lion’s Mane mushrooms for wholesale and retail as well as converting them into meat-free umami sauces. This innovative container farm can be found at the Brewing Brothers tap room and will be open for a quick peak and chance to meet the growers.

Brewing Brothers Tap Room

6-8 Burgess Road, Hastings, Saturday 1-4pm

The garden (and chickens) at the Brewing Brothers tap room provide fresh produce for their restaurants, which in turn generate the nutrient-rich compost on which this vegetable and herb garden thrive. Visitors are welcome to wander at their leisure around the garden or head directly to the tap room selling craft beers brewed on site. 

Church Wood Community Orchard

Church in the Wood Lane, off Churchwood Drive, St Leonards, Sun 11am-4pm

The orchard was planted in 2021 in Church Wood Nature Reserve having gained a 25-year lease from Hastings Borough Council. The 12 apple trees are tended by volunteers who also have plans to develop a wildflower meadow of local species; creating a space for the Hollington community to access and enjoy and providing a haven for native ecosystems. 

Local entomology expert Andy Phillips and botanist Judy Clark will be leading visitors wanting to identify and learn about the plants and insects that can be found in the orchard.

The Forager’s Garden

Side garden, 29 Quarry Road, Sunday 2-4pm

Proving that even small spaces can be productive is this example of a forager’s garden. The space is packed with a biodiverse range of fruit trees, vines, fruiting shrubs, wildflowers and edible annuals. 

The garden provides its owner with wines, liqueurs, vinegar, jams, jellies, chutneys, and an array of herbal teas and even some medicines to use throughout the year.

For more information contact hannahmrobbins@gmail.com or call 07841 848235

From equinox to equinox, local food grower’s network Town Grown has been encouraging people to plant fruit trees across Hastings and St Leonards. The organisation’s launch survey revealed that three quarters of its network are growing food at home, in their own gardens. This prompted them to start the Our Town is an Orchard campaign to emphasise and utilise the positive impact fruit trees can have on our health and that of native ecosystems.

Town Grown have been mapping the new fruit trees – of which there are over 50 – to show how well the town’s orchard is developing. Find the map and a helpful guide for planting your own fruit trees on their website towngrown.co.uk. 

TTH Annual General Meeting and Earth Day conversation

This year Transition Town Hastings (TTH) will be holding its AGM on Earth Day, 23 April. They’re inviting everyone who’s passionate about making Hastings happier, healthier and more sustainable to come together and be part of a conversation about what’s currently going on, what’s needed and what’s on the horizon. If your group wants to be part of an Earth Day conversation, get in touch via info@transitiontownhastings.org.uk. 

Together South

Together South works to support refugees and non-EU migrants in Hastings and Rother, helping them to connect with and thrive in their communities by providing English language lessons, employment advice and community activities. All activities the programme offers are free of charge. The programme focuses on three key areas:

LANGUAGE: Conversational English language support helps participants to communicate more easily with UK citizens, and access services.

CULTURE: In partnership with The Refugee Buddy Project, refugees and migrants take part in community activities alongside UK citizens to promote inter-cultural understanding and help participants to make friends in their local community.

PREPARATION FOR WORK: Participants are offered employable skills training, careers advice and pastoral care via Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG).

To find out more about the programme, contact Pierre on 07715 632 036 pierre.matate@groundwork.org.uk.

This week – 26 November to 4 December – is National Tree Week. The aim is to celebrate trees as the heroes of nature at a perfect moment for planting them.

Trees are vital to our future in so many ways. Friends of the Earth are campaigning to double the tree cover in the UK where we currently have just 13% of the total land covered by trees, compared to an EU average of 35%. Planting more trees is a brilliant positive solution to protect our environment and work towards net zero emissions, as they are the ultimate carbon capture and storage machines. The benefits of reforestation are compelling: tree planting tackles both the climate crisis and the ecosystem collapse whilst providing beautiful and productive spaces to enjoy.

Planting at Speckled Wood orchard in Ore

CREDIT: Mima Bone

In Hastings we are fortunate to have truly spectacular wooded places to enjoy on our doorstep. Guestling Wood, managed by Woodland Trust, is a stunning example of a typical High Weald ancient woodland, and St Helen’s Wood is a magical ancient gill woodland (growing either side of a ravine eroded by a stream running through), looked after by St Helen’s Park Preservation Society. A recent new project is Church Wood Community Orchard in Hollington which planted its first fruit trees in February 2021. Working with a great group of volunteers, the orchard is thriving and hosting community events. They are currently working on planting a hedge around the fence. You can find out more or get involved via their Facebook page.

Ore Community Land Trust manages Speckled Wood, a twelve-and-a-half acre woodland in the heart of Ore. The paths and bridges provide plenty of scope for exploration and discovery, and volunteers here have also been busy planting a new orchard. Alongside the community garden, you will find a range of fruit trees including some more unusual varieties like medlar and mulberry. Open volunteer sessions are held on Thursday mornings, and you can pick up a map of the wood at this time too.

This autumn has seen a renewed emphasis on tree planting locally. Town Grown, the Hastings and St Leonard’s food growers network, launched the Our Town is an Orchard campaign. As well as hosting free events and resources to support would-be tree planters, they are creating a map of new fruit trees planted across the town. Visit the website to register yours.

New tree planting initiatives are also springing up. An orchard with apples, pears, quinces, plums and cherries is being planted this autumn by volunteers in the open space at Bembrook Road. You can follow their progress and get involved through Hastings Community Trees on Facebook. In another project, Croft Road will also be planted with new hawthorn, hazel and field maple trees to regenerate a small piece of woodland which has been diminished by the felling of poplars and ash die-back infection.

Hastings business Brewing Brothers are also doing their bit to add to the tree cover locally. Reforestation is their climate-positive pale ale: it uses local ingredients and a proportion of profits from its sale goes towards planting trees. This autumn, 350 trees will be planted from the sale of Reforestation pale ale. Native species have been chosen to create just over half an acre of new woodland. Goat willow, rowan, blackthorn, dog rose and many more species will encourage pollinators and build biodiversity in this new site on Batchelors Bump in Ore.

Taking advice from the proverb “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago the second best time is now”, let’s all join with our local community and get involved in a tree-planting project. It’s a guaranteed feel-good activity and one that future generations will thank us for.

• For projects mentioned above, see the following websites: www.treecouncil.org.uk; www.woodlandtrust.org.uk; www.sthelenswoods.co.uk; www.towngrown.co.uk/our-town-is-an-orchard; orecommunitylandtrust.org.uk; www.brewingbrothers.org.

Find Church Wood Community Orchard and Hastings Community Trees on Facebook

Town Grown is a new project set up to support and stimulate food growing across the Hastings area. Its aim is to help anyone that wants to produce more fruit and veg locally, more successfully and more collaboratively, no matter the size or stage of their project. 

Town Grown is an offshoot of Transition Town Hastings (TTH), part of a global transition network of community-led projects that seek to tackle some of the largest environmental challenges that face the world today through grass-roots community action and initiatives. 

Town Grown at St Leonards Market

Food shortages and soaring prices, the combined impact of Brexit, Covid-19 and the war in Ukraine, all brought the vulnerabilities and unsustain-ability of the globalised food system into stark relief, inspiring a move to bring food growing closer to home. 

The team believes that growing more food within the community can yield not only the most nutritious and tastiest results, fresh and organic, but can also support biodiversity, the local economy and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels. 

Hastings permaculture pract-itioner and TTH member Anna Locke initiated the project with help from a grant from The National Lottery Community Fund Together for Our Planet. She says:

“I first became involved in the Transition Town movement in 2009. What I liked about the movement back then, and still now, is the optimism and creativity of ground-up community experiments that reimagine ways of living rather than focus on doom about our future. That said, many fears are coming true: what seemed like a vague, miles-away prospect of expensive energy and food has now very much arrived on our doorsteps, in our petrol stations and supermarkets. 

“For me, this is the essence of the Town Grown project, as a town we can bypass higher prices by grow-ing our own. Like the local food movement pioneers before us have shown – there is another way to live; more independently, with greater agency and we might even enjoy it better, seeing change as an opportunity. Growing food offers a greater connection to our real needs, whilst becoming more aware of the nature around us.

“The network seeks to be a supportive arena where both established and prospective grow-ers can connect, share skills and resources and learn how to grow more edibles, more effectively and more enjoyably, with others on a similar journey. 

Whether it’s helping find more growing space, matching volun-teers with projects needing workers or hosting specific educational sessions, Town Grown’s efforts will be shaped by its members via an open-to-all survey on its website.”

Anna continues: “We’ve set it up as a place where you can say what you would like to learn, and we can try to provide that learning experience for you. We would love to see everyone’s gardens, allotments, community gardens, public spaces, local farms and other projects absolutely brimming with a whole range of food plants!  It’s about having a collective mind set to really live amongst our food again, creating community food legacies for us and our future town dwellers to go out and enjoy the harvest.”

Town Grown has a monthly stall at St Leonards Market where all are welcome to bring seeds, seedlings and produce to swap and meet with other growers, as well as a variety of workshops and advice sessions with dates and details posted on the website: towngrown.co.uk

When we plant a seed, there is hope. When we harvest a plant, we are nourished and when we plant a tree, there is abundance of food for our future town.

• Contacts:
Anna Locke annacjlocke@hotmail.com, 07946 228110.
Hannah Robbins hannahmrobbins@gmail.com, 07841 848235.