Methlick’s Community Garden
The Formartine Partnership was involved in several projects that gave rural communities the opportunity to get involved with the heritage and sustainable development of their area.
One of those projects was a Community Garden at Methlick, which is being developed in partnership with the Formartine Partnership, the Resource Centre, in Ellon, and Community Groups in the Methlick area. To support a growing interest in Community Gardens in Formartine , a Community Garden Partnership was formed in July 2004, and tasked with the job of finding a suitable site for the first project.
The search ended inFebruary 2005 when Haddo Estate and Gleesons, offered the use of the old Haddo Eastate Quarry at Gurgedyke, Methlick.
In March 2005, Gleeson’s who had been working on a new wastewater facility for Methlick, prepared the site, along with help from Scottish Water, by adding raised beds, composting facilities, parking and storage space. Also in March 2005, an application was submitted to Fresh Futures, in the hope of raising funding to help support the project.
Funding was awarded to the Partnership in June 2005 and volunteers have started working to develop the garden for the community.
Clients from Ellon Resource Centre were already making use of the facility, and planting got underway in the raised beds.
What happened next?
New beds were developed and a large poly tunnel introduced. Flowers, berries and herbs, grown on the site, were grown by the groups and became available for sale to the local community at sales organised at the site.
A series of training sessions were offered by the S.A.C. on a variety of subjects including bio-diversity, composting and renewable energy uses, to users of the garden. Bob Davis initiated the first training session in November 2005.
Community Garden Volunteers in Training!
Volunteers from the Methlick community garden project recently attended and participated in a training session given by Bob Davis the local bio-diversity officer for the Formartine Area.
The training session was held in November 2005 at the Kirk Centre in Ellon and was attended by garden volunteers from the Ellon Resource Centre and members of the Pitcaple garden project.
Bob gave a very informative and enlightening session on hedging, advising the group of the benefits of using native tree’s to form hedges, e.g. while a non-native Sycamore tree can support 30 insect species, a native Oak tree can support 300 species!
Bob also presented the group with a series of ‘Creative Conservation’ booklets which he has written for the garden library.
Methlick Community Garden 