Tregovenek's Community Garden

Aim: We want to create a beautiful community owned garden which is welcoming, supportive and productive; a place to connect, learn and thrive.

Welcome! 

We are so grateful that you are taking the time to read our story!

We are Tregovenek - a Community Benefit Society that is safeguarding a small abundant farm and garden space for the community and for future generations to come, both human and other than human. We want to showcase how operating in community can regenerate the land and ourselves to become the best that we can be. 

"If we wait for governments it will be too late. If we act as individuals it will be too little. But if we act as communities we change what is possible" - Transition Together.

What are we crowdfunding for?

We want to provide a community owned garden to enable people to connect, learn and work together to discover what it is we each have to offer in order to help build a better, fairer world for future generations.

The Community Garden

We have worked through a permaculture design and engagement process to develop a vision for the community garden that includes all the functions for a thriving community space for people and nature. Now we need some financial help to make it a reality this summer with our army of volunteers!

We want the garden to enable all the following important functions:

• Education in food growing, medicinal plants, composting, and permaculture.
• Public compost toilet facilities - accessible for anyone using the community woodlands or visiting relatives in Pentiddy's Natural Burial Ground. 
• Community connection and wellbeing. A place for gatherings of all kinds, whether celebrations, funerals, wellbeing workshops, meetings, or social events to include outdoor wood-fired cooking facilities and kettle. 
• Beauty, peace and quiet. 
• A community tree nursery.
• Fire pit and meditation space.
• Treatment room/1:1 counselling pod emersed in nature. 
• A place to volunteer, learn how to grow and garden and make medicinal tinctures from herbs, meet with friends and learn new skills.

The Tregovenek story so far:

Tregovenek was formed in 2021 when a handful of people saw an 8 acre piece of land and had a vision to give it back to the community as a space to provide health and wellbeing, community connection, collaboration and resilience, food and resource security and education in traditional skills for a changing world with an uncertain future. 

When Tregovenek first evolved it was a field and some outbuildings with a run down, overgrown market garden. As we progressed, a beautiful Tregovenek family of volunteers and interested parties grew to support the development of the land and space into the vision we know is possible. We have had many work parties to improve the land, take out brambles, uncover hidden veg beds, maintain the buildings and manage the meadow regeneratively, while having lots of fun and laughter, a few tears, but always with love and community at the heart of all we do.

Tregovenek is a Community Benefit Society, which means it has a Board of Directors that are responsible legally. However, we operate under a ’sociocratic’ structure. This means that there is no hierarchy and that everyone has a voice. Tregovenek is community-owned and as such is run collectively by its members in a compassionate and efficient way. This allows us to safeguard the land and ensure that people and nature being in balance is at the heart of everything we do, now and for the future. We plan to launch a community share offer in early 2025 to enable more people to co-own Tregovenek with us.  

There are big possibilities for the whole site, including workshops spaces, an eco-build community hub, a community tree nursery, small scale food production, agroforestry and composting.  We also want to facilitate a wellbeing centre offering alternative education for young people, green social prescribing for all ages, nature based therapy, counselling and treatments, educational courses, crafts and forgotten skills - the list goes on!

We want to continue to work closely with other community groups and external parties to enhance the biodiversity and natural abundance that is already here, as well as the health and wellbeing benefits for our community. 

We need your help!

Please help us to make our community garden a reality! It will cost £15,000 for landscaping and digger rental, building materials, structures for shelter, seating and shade cover, tree work, compost, implementing accessible pathways and an accessible compost toilet, as well as many many beautiful plants!

Join us! Use our rewards as an excuse to come and enjoy the beautiful space here this summer and support the emergence of a wonderful co-created garden for everyone. 

We look forward to welcoming you and thank you for your support! 

With heart and gratitude.

The Tregovenek Community xx