Hobbs Community Garden

There's something magical about watching a community garden space come together over a patch of dirt, shared stories and local sustainability. Community gardens are much more than just patches of green—they serve as vital hubs where we can interact directly with nature and our neighbours while elevating our overall health and social well-being.

Hobbs Community Garden is a welcoming and vibrant West Sussex garden, dedicated to

fostering community cohesion, local resilience, and a greener future, with a simple

yet powerful mission rooted in the three core Permaculture principles:

For many years I've been on the look out for a space to set up a community garden and growing area within our Parish, and finally we have a space! IThis community garden has been set up between myself (Bridgette Macilwaine) and Pamela Godfrey in October 2025.

The space aims to provide a vital antidote to social isolation while empowering residents by

sharing the skills needed to grow low-cost, high-nutrient organic food, helping families build

long-term food independence, supporting local schools and food banks, as well as providing habitats and pollinator friendly planting to support our local biodiversity.

Below is a roundup summary of our activities over the past few months during the renovation, and to see more progress, detailed blog posts or garden plans, head over to our website:

www.hobbscommunitygarden.com

The Community space is divided into two plots:

1. The communal and social gathering space, also including the greenhouse, the shed, a wildlife pond, pollinator friendly planting, insect hotels and several established fruit trees.

2. The linear food production space with a focus on varying vegetables, herbs, fruits, edible flowers and unique edible perennials and edimentals. This area also includes the materials storage and compost bins.

Volunteer days currently take place on Sundays and as we work through completing

renovations and planting throughout 2026. We aim to open the garden on additional

days during the week, as the volunteer list is rapidly growing and we have interest from varying local groups to make use of the space for workshops or events.

We've been very busy at work over the past 8 months, with a large focus site clearance, renovation and admin, tasks have included:

Garden works:

• clearing the overgrowth

• collecting donated and decylced materials

• removing the broken existing shed erecting a new strucure and roof

• constructing compost bins

• creating planting areas with palettes

• creating a solid base and assembling the large greenhouse

• installing a main paved access path

• moving the current bushes

• clearning grass areas for planting

• creating pathways with barkchip

Admin & operations:

• Setting up bank account and insurance

• Creating general documentation and site rules

• Website creation

• Creating a budget document against future activities

• Social pages setup

• Applying for funding and donations

• Sharing information with local magazines and online groups

• Creating a volunteer member list and oganising social gatherings

If you're interested to come along and join in, please email us on our dedicated email hobbscommunitygarden@gmail.com

If you're interested to follow along with the updates and activities, check us out on Instagram and Facebook.

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Thanks for reading, any questions, we would love to hear from you!