Home | Hobbs Community Garden

Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share
Supporting our local community in West Sussex, connecting residents to gardening, food growing, nature interaction and offering spaces to socialise, learn and share skills.

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About

Bridgette Macilwaine and Pamela Godfrey were thrilled to secure a space for a Community Garden and growing project in West Sussex in October 2025. Rooted in permaculture principles for Earth Care, People Care and Fair Share. Our mission is to offer a vibrant, productive, welcoming green space to local residents and to bridge the gap between sustainable living, community resilience and biodiversity enhancement.

The garden welcomes people of all ages and abilities to chat over a cup of teas, share skills, enjoy the benefits of outdoor activities, and socialize with surplus produce donated to local food banks.

Volunteer days currently take place on Sundays and as the team expands, additional volunteer sessions will be offered, as well as focused workshops over the coming months.

Help Us Grow

To join as a volunteer or any other queries and collaborations

If you're unable volunteer in the garden, but still wish to support the Communtiy Garden, your contribution can make a huge difference!

We're hoping to add more seating areas to the space, raised beds for elderly volunteers, add in a small wildlife pond.

Donate & Support

Email Bridgette and Pamela on

hobbscommunitygarden@gmail.com

Loving our new table! 🤩 Thanks to Saif for creating this today for us using a pallet and recycled wood.
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#recycledmaterials #communitygarden #buildingthings

We were really happy to welcome Liz and Deb from the Bognor Really Wild Group to our garden.

We believe that a garden is so much more than a collection of plants, it’s a living hub for connection, learning, and local resilience. 💚 No garden exists in isolation, so connecting with other local community groups, interested residents and neighborhood initiatives allows us to share knowledge, pass along skills, and support one another's goals.

What we’re up to at Hobbs:

🥬 Permaculture in Action: Practicing Earth Care, People Care, and Fair Share through sustainable design and habitat creation.

🥕 Growing Edimentals & Perennial Crops: Experimenting with unique, low-maintenance edible plants alongside traditional allotment favorites.

🐝 Supporting Biodiversity: Creating wildlife-friendly spaces that encourage local pollinators and natural pest predators.

🤝 Knowledge Sharing: Hosting workshops and informal chats where plot holders, volunteers, and curious neighbors can learn together.

Whether you're passionate about organic food growing, wildlife conservation, or simply finding a quiet green space to recharge, there’s a place for you here.

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#hobbscommunitygarden #growingthings #gardensforgoodcauses

Can you guess what this is?
🌱Another interesting plant we're growing at the @hobbs.community.garden

🌼These pretty daisy or sunflower-like blooms grow on tall stems that can reach up to 2m high.

Yacon 'Inka Red' (Smallanthus sonchifolius) is an unusual, tall perennial root vegetable from the Andes that produces crisp, juicy tubers with striking pinky-purple to red skin and a sweet, pear-like flavor.

We're excited to try growing this is our garden as it can survive temperatures down to –5°C, so a good option for us on the south coast with milder UK temperatures.

We're really looking forward to eating it one day, and similar to potatoes, it can be cooked in stir-fries, roasted, or added to soups and stews , but apparently it can also be eaten raw in salads.

This is Yacon 'Inka Red' - sourced from @kitchengardenplantcentre
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#growinginterestingplants #perennialvegetables #communitygarden #hobbscommunitygarden #westsussex

Come along and join us for our next Community Garden Day at Hobbs Community Garden!

Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or just want to pop by to say hello, everyone is welcome, you can choose to get your hands dirty and join in with seeds planting, enjoy a slice of cake or help out with the woodworking activity. Drop in for an hour or stay for the whole day!

📅 When: Sunday, September 13th from 11:00 AM

📍 Where: Hobbs Community Garden

🛠️ What to Expect: Gardening, planting, woodworks, herb harvest and delicious cake!

Come lend a hand, learn something new, and connect with your local community. Hope to see you there, and if you do plan to join, make sure to let us know because the access gate is locked. Let us know either on here or via email - hobbscommunitygarden@gmail.com

#hobbscommunitygarden #communitygardening #getoutdoors #plantingseeds

Thanks to our volunteers with grape growing knowledge who've helped give this grape vine a good chop. In the sunshine it had exploded with growth and all the grapes were hiding underneath.

They've now been giving some breathing room and access to sunshine so it will be interesting to see how they develop.....or what we do with them!

Relocation, sustainability and continuing progress.
A few photos from the 2 days of breakdown following the RHS Badminton show a couple months ago. It's surprising how quickly everything comes out and can be packed away in one day. The van was quite a full load on the way home!

Our garden wasn't just for a one week show, it's a Community legacy project, where every plant, tree, and material used at the RHS show was returned to Middleton-on-Sea to be re-homed and used in our Community Garden, creating a permanent, sustainable garden space for local residents, groups and schools for years to come.

The award we received belongs to the whole team and community, as we look forward to continuing to grow resilient, abundant and welcoming green spaces together. The plants have now been replanted and 99% seem to have survived the dry summer and the materials stored ready to be used in the garden for our wildlife pond, pergola, pathway, water channel and planters.

We'll be holding several group workshops and events in the coming months, so do get in touch if you are interested to join in, and keep a look out on our website and socials for updates. See you soon!
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#communityspaces
#communitygardening
#recyclingmaterials
#hobbscommunitygarden

Some exciting developments at the Community garden this week! 🙌 Long hours, sunny skies and a great sense of satisfaction

We're looking forward to sharing some updates when we've gone through a photos.

Here's a bit of a preview with the entrance flowers adding a lovely pop of colour.
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#communitygardening #gardenrenovation #flowerslovers

Our Wild basil, Good king henry and Artemisia (cola plant) growing well here despite the long hot days and windy location.

Loving this colourful combination of nasturtiums, calendula and sweet peas. We would to include this in our garden beds for next year.
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#ediblegarden #communitygardening

Thanks to Samya for donating this stack of books to our garden.
We cant wait to get the shelves up in the shed and have our book sharing library.

If you know of anyone wanting to donate books on gardening, nature, wildlife, permaculture, food growing, pruning etc....let us know and we can add them to our collection.

Thank you to everyone who visited the garden today, what an amazing turnout of volunteers 💚✨️

We loved meeting new people and talking about all things plants, community, nature & design.

🔸️Todays session achieved:
- welcoming new volunteers
- reviewing wildlife pond design & creation
- comfrey cut back & leaves stored
- moving stick piles ready for insect hotel workshops
- clearing brambles from the fruit bushes and shed edge
- harvesting veg
- dead heading flowers
- sharing information on compost creation
- weeding underneath the fruit trees
- tasting unusual edible plants
- planning out future workshops with local groups
- planting out peppers
- pruning back the grape vine
- reviewing cycling routes
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#communityspaces #communitygardens #sustainableliving

Successful afternoon working on this corner 🙌
We've been working through the upgrades and creation of the different areas over the past few months, and anyone who volunteers with a group knows that progress can be quite slow or sporadic dependant on when volunteers are available..... SO it's exciting to finally have worked on this corner which was quite a big job!

🔸️First cleared the area of all the bits that had been stored here
🔸️Created the edging from varying donated timber and sleepers
🔸️Positioned our fruit tree and rose bush
🔸️Layered varying sticks, cuttings, and plant bits
🔸️Watered the whole planting area
🔸️Topped up the area with compost and soil and watered again
🔸️Laid the donated red bricks as edging

Next thing is to get planting in and to complete the last planter edge that wasn't yet fixed together.
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#hobbscommunitygarden #gardenrenovation #ukallotments

Loving this colourful harvest from the Hobbs Community Garden of salads, veg and fruit! 💚 There's lots growing and still more plants to add over the year. We're so happy with how well the plants have been growing as some of the plants chosen have been a bit of an experiment to see how they cope and survive in our West Sussex location and climate.

We plan to hold a garden cooking and food session sometime, so if you're interested to learn more or get involved....get in touch and let us know.

If you're popping over to help out or say hi, don't forget to bring a small box to take a few bits away with you.
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#growingfoodisfun #organicgrown #communitygardens #hobbscommunitygarden

Join us on Sunday 23rd August for a Garden Gathering and Growing Day at our Community Plots.

Come along from 11am for some gardening, tea and cake.

Let us know you plan to join either by DM or by email to Bridgette and Pamela to hobbscommunitygarden@gmail.com

We will be watering, harvesting salads and herbs, weeding, trimming the grape vines and tidying. We’ll provide gloves and tools, and make sure to wear comfortable shoes and outdoor clothing.

📍 Hobbs Community Garden

🗓️ Sunday 23rd August

🕒 From 11am – stay as long as you choose

Hope to see you there!

Really happy with the result of the few hours spent on Sunday in the garden. A large area weeded and cleared, bark chip spread for the seating area for our bench, pallets re-aligned, cardboard laid ready to create more planting areas and the edging put in place temporarily until we decide how it'll be fully fixed in place.

If you'd like to come get involved,volunteer or just join for a chat, get in touch and let us know 💚

Swipe to see the before photo 🙂
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#communitygardens #communityspaces #growingfood #ukallotments

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@hobbs.community.garden