The Forest Food Garden is a communal endeavour as students together plan, grow, preserve and distribute garden produce.

The Forest Food Garden elective modules stress the valuing of diversity and interdependence.

The Forest Garden Festival on 4 April will feature bands, food, face-painting & merch.

A sunny Wednesday afternoon in early March was assigned for the latest round of large-scale planting and development for the Forest Food Garden team.

Around 20 volunteers from across the University community were paired with Forest Food Garden students to plant, learn, get to know each other, and try examples of food that will eventually result from the forest food garden provided by Daphne Lambert of the Greencuisine Trust.

This latest stage of the garden’s development included:

• Planting a nuttery designed by last year’s students that includes sweet chestnut, bladdernut, hazelnut and almond, plus a sea buckthorn hedge.

• Planting Elaeagnus cuttings in a newly made nursery bed
• Mulching and bramble bashing
• Mimicking mega beasts to browse (break branches), graze (pull up tufts of grass) and root (reveal bare earth) to enhance biodiversity.

Module leader, Dr Perpetua Kirby (Assistant Professor in Childhood & Youth), said:

“The Forest Food Garden is a communal endeavour as students together plan, grow, preserve and distribute garden produce. The campus day is a highlight of the year as the invitation to collaborate extends to the wider university community. It’s a social event as students and staff share with each other their knowledge, concerns and hopes as they care for the garden.

The taught Forest Food Garden elective modules stress the valuing of such diversity and interdependence—both within human communities and with other species—and its imperative in the face of climate change and ecological destruction. The anthropologist, Anna Tsing, captures this powerfully: ‘Staying alive—for every species—requires liveable collaborations.’ Students are currently designing habitats for other species; and we shall build these at next year’s campus maintenance day. Please come along!”

Also assisting the Forest Food Garden Team were members of the Forest Garden Society. Created solely to support the development of the forest garden and the premise that nature is for everyone and to find ways to make it more accessible – the Society meets regularly on Thursday afternoons and has a 1hr radio show on a Monday afternoon (12-1pm) on University Radio Falmer for nature themed music.

The Society splits its time between working in the Forest Food Garden and doing art or delivering nature workshops in The Sunflower Room in Norwich House. Having hosted a number of music-themed socials to date, the Society is currently making benches for the garden and planning and preparing for a Forest Garden Festival on the afternoon of Friday 4 April.

Forest Garden Society Co-President, Jack Cooper, said:

"We're so excited for the festival which will raise awareness and funds for Palestine Medical Aid and the Save Dartington Forest Garden campaign. It's been six months in the planning with the Sussex Students Union and will feature six bands covering a variety of genres: folk, rock, jazz, funk and soul. There will also be food, face painting, merch and a chill-out area. We have kept prices as low as possible to ensure that as many students as possible will be able to attend. Bring your own drinks and come along for nature, art, food and music."

Buy your tickets for the Forest Garden Festival online.

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The Forest Food Garden modules will form part of the new Climate Justice, Sustainability and Development BA (Hons) to launch in 2025. The course is the UK’s first undergraduate degree focused on climate justice and will equip students with a blend of expertise in climate politics, activism and environmental human rights with the practical green skills needed to drive change.