Outdoor Play (no matter what your age) should, of course be fun, it’s kind of there in the title. But there’s absolutely no reason why that play can’t be fun, educational and purposeful, and that’s precisely what they’re hoping to achieve at GLOBAL GARDENS in Cardiff.

Global Gardens is a community growing project based in Cardiff which is all about coming together through gardening, cooking and food. Their vision is to create a growing space that supports community-based sharing of food and cultures.

They have an allotment site where they are cultivating an organic kitchen garden, celebrating crops from around the world. The crops grown are then used in the monthly community suppers at the Embassy café at Cathays Community Centre, and for other community-shared meals, when we’re not in the middle of social distance restrictions that is.

The work they do is fantastic and in this day and age, anything that encourages us all, in particular our kids to get outside and learn about nature, the environment, growing and eating what we produce ourselves, the plant to plate philosophy, has to be a good thing.

Global Gardens work within the Trinity Centre, a space that provides support and outreach to so many members of the community. Through the shared activities of gardening, cooking and eating their aim is to enable inter-cultural understanding and support community integration, health and well-being.

They were also awarded one of the People’s Projects awards! Which has given them the ability to grow, and do more, together.

So, what about those play sessions for the kids? Well actually, it’s a chance for the parents to get involved too. The family-friendly open day’s at Global Gardens we’re running at the start of the year, before we all went into lockdown. The kids (young and old) had a chance to learn and be part of designing the future sessions.

They included included fire lighting, hot chocolate, plant identification, planting and making things with natural materials.

Their work continues and they have more events lined up as we move into the autumn/winter season. These are just a few of the events coming up……

• Creative Writing Workshop
• Autumn Berry & Nut Inks
• Winter Creative Writing
• Festive Willow Weaving

Registration is closed on those, but we would recommend you keep an eye out for other sessions, they are a productive lot at Global Gardens.

As far as community projects go, this is one right up there as one of the best. To find out more about them, and perhaps get involved in some way, go here, GLOBAL