The story of Incredible Edible Mossley

Incredible Edible Mossley started in early 2015 in true Incredible Edible style – over a cuppa in a local café, where all the best ideas start out.  We had a chat with Mary Mitchell, who’s been involved with the group from the early days to hear about some of the ways they run the group and their plans for the future.

Incredible Edible Mossley grow fruit, herbs and vegetables in any suitable space and for the benefit of the community.  The group also co-operate with other community groups and have helped to plant a community orchard, plus part of their Valeside site has art and planters made by a local community group ReCreate Mossley.

As with many groups, it’s important to keep people interested and coming along to group activities, so Mary has tried a few techniques: “Getting folks to join us has been hard with lots of ups and downs along the way. I have tried giving lots of notice or quite little advance warning about events and activities and think a few days’ notice is probably best.”  Keeping the Incredible Edible profile up at community events is important, and Mary has a unique way of demonstrating that you can grow anywhere… “I particularly enjoy taking my own grapefruit tree and making a pop up garden and showing fruit and vegetables can be grown in all sorts of containers and places.”

The group now have their own bank account, but with this comes the challenge of raising money to go in it, which is not everyone’s cup of tea.  It’s always good to consider the different skills needed to keep a group going, so reaching out to non-growers can be really beneficial.  Fundraising for charities is an exciting career option and for anyone starting out raising funds for their local Incredible Edible group could be a great way to get some experience under your belt and some successful grant applications on your CV.  So you might be able to find a local volunteer who loves filling in those application forms through the local college or university.

Meanwhile, Mary already has plans for 2019, “I hope Incredible Edible Mossley will continue to grow in various ways next year. I have bought some bee friendly seed bombs which I hope to enlist the help of our 5 local primary schools in deciding where they should be sown. I am on the lookout for a place to make another similar community garden to Valeside, of which we are very proud.”

If you’re from the Mossley area and would like to get involved, then find Incredible Edible Mossley on Facebook.  And if you’d like to share your story with us, then get in touch.  Click here to find an Incredible Edible group near you, or sign up to the website to access our Getting going section with loads of resources on setting up a new group.