A very determined bunch of volunteers

The Stirley Volunteer Wildlife Gardening Group mainly plant, nurture and harvest fruit and vegetables. These are the result of 17 years of hard work by the gardening group which was established in 2009 when things were very different. Back then, the main focus of the group was to engage schools from the Huddersfield area in an initiative called “Pick, Cook and Eat”. The volunteers managed vegetable plots and local schools would visit Stirley nature reserve to learn about where food came from, help out a bit and then harvest the fruit and veg for use in cookery lessons.

At the turn of the 2020’s things changed. Firstly we had Covid and the schools couldn’t come. Neither could the volunteers. After Covid the volunteers came back. The Schools didn’t. Restricted budgets for transport and curriculum changes saw to that. Most schools now have some kind of gardening plots on-site. After a year of enforced neglect, the site was in a bit of a state and the garden had lost its original purpose. Despite this, the volunteer team had no intention of giving up on their venture. As the schools dropped out, they could see the way things were going and started to look at what else they could do.

Introducing the Umpire

Back in those strange early days of Covid with volunteers not able to travel in that most gorgeous and frustrating lockdown spring, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust sent a speculative email to our close neighbours around Stirley to see if anyone would be interested in looking after the plots and using the produce. Thom Day who lives nearby had, like many during the days of lockdown, thought about doing a bit more in the garden. When his wife received the mail asking for help to set up and tend the vegetable beds, he had found a project.

Thom is a proper Yorkshireman. Having been born and raised in upstate New York, he might not have been eligible to play Cricket for Yorkshire back in the day, but studying at Leeds University, working with a company making Sand Martin Banks and doing his bit at Stirley is proper Yorkshire in my book. I didn’t grill him on the Cricket lawbook though. Thom continued volunteering with the group after Covid and even did 6 months as a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust Voluntary Placement. He has been described to me as the “Umpire” of the Stirley Garden Wildlife group. Maybe I should have delved a bit deeper into his understanding of Cricket laws. His role as umpire involves linking up with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust staff who generally leave the group to get on with things. 

The group is self-supporting in the photo above left to right is as follows Ruth, Jane F, Georgia, Thom 'the umpire', Michael, Jenny, Helen, Jane D and Alison. 

This means they don’t need a member of staff present to engage in tasks. But they do need Yorkshire Wildlife Trust trained volunteer task day leaders and first aiders with up-to-date certificates. In order to meet each Tuesday, rain or shine, they need one of each and they have enough qualified volunteers to make sure this always happens. This is a remarkable level of commitment from the team. I’m not  using the word “team” here in the LinkedIn sense of “The group of people I’m stuck with”. I’m talking about a group of people with a real shared purpose who gladly and freely share their different knowledge and skills, learn from each and have a good laugh. The group has a series of champions - gardening experts who know when to prune, wildflower experts, project managers to sort out the tasks, crop rotation and make sure the group always has leaders and first aiders on hand. There’s also a garden designer and on the day I was there we even had a new starter.

Planning a different future

The end of Covid and loss of purpose for the group led to a rethink about what the garden and group is for. Before Covid, the garden consisted of 42 vegetable plots - the soil looks great by the way. Without the schools, this was too many. It can be difficult to give away that much food. The plots are on land the public can walk through, but people can be quite reluctant to take the free food on offer. So, the food plots are being reshaped and reduced to 24. This means there are 6 plots each year for each element of the four year ABRP rotation plan which stands for - Aliums, Brassicas, Roots Potatoes, or as I would say Onions, Cabbage, Carrots and Spuds. 

None of this can happen without planning and organisation. I'll describe the process as the team described it to me. There is a system of Informal democracy where everyone gets an opportunity to talk and everyone listens.They don’t always agree, but they have Thom to umpire. They have only ever had one formal meeting - in a cafe. 

Ambition and connection

Now, in spring 2026, the group has real ambition. They are aiming for #Teamwilder gold garden status. #Teamwilder is a nationawide Wildlife Trust initiative to support communities to help nature to thrive and recover without directly managing them. As part of this a Wildlife Gardening Award has been created with Bronze, Silver and Gold levels according to how much they encourage wildlife. Size isn’t a factor - A yard with a few pots can reach gold standard.

The Garden re-design has led to the group becoming more high profile in the wider community. On the day I was there, the team was building a gold standard wild flower garden “room” based on the size of an average new-build house garden - 10 metres by 10 metres. Jenny, the day’s new volunteer starter, who was working on the room's border explained that she was building a fedge. On her first day she already knew enough to teach me that a fedge is a living woven hedge made from willow. 

Jenny on the left in the above photo spent her first day making a fedge with help from Helen, the Stirley Garden group wildflower expert. The point of this room is to show how people can encourage wildlife into a typical small garden. Next door to this room is another that is being created by a local scout group. Reaching out to other groups is something the Stirley Wildlife volunteer gardening group have excelled at. At one end of the garden is a plot used as a tree nursery for River Holme Connections. The Huddersfield Astronomy Society has an area for stargazing. The food that couldn’t be given away is now being sent to two foodbanks. It seems obvious, but it isn't easy to find foodbanks that can handle fresh produce.

A Beautiful plan

Managing all these changes required a total change to the way the garden was laid out. For this we have Ruth Love who has been trained in garden design by the Royal Horticultural Society, no less. She has redesigned the main garden based on “desire lines” which form the muddy footpaths we carve with our feet instead of using the more formal footpaths that we are supposed to follow. She has a great idea to make the neglected entrance to the garden more enticing by building a living arch over it - Who doesn’t love to go through an arch? She has also created the overall plan. Not on a computer, but as a drawing, rightly framed and sat proudly in the poly tunnel where everyone can refer to it. It’s like something Isambard Kingdom Brunel might have worked from. The Yellow triangle  on the plan represents a patch where yellow rattle has been planted in a grass patch. Yellow rattle is semi-parasitic. It locks into the roots of grasses and leaches some of the nutrients. This inhibits grass growth to a level that allows more native wildflowers to come through and eventually create wildflower meadow.

The champion for organising things is Catherine Gormley (she doesn’t want to be called Project manager) who was busy updating paper schedules as I arrived in the welcoming poly tunnel with its peach tree in full blossom. As a former project manager and supply chain guy who’s spent a fair bit of time grappling with software versions of this type of thing, I was impressed with this level of organisation. I’m sure she has spreadsheets somewhere too. The other champion in this area is Jane Doherty who looks after seed borders, bed rotation and planting schedules. Jane Freeman, who doesn't have a garden at home “Just a few pots” is also involved with the planting schedules, but today, she’s getting stuck in with the spade.

Alison also works on the scheduling. Of course, there is a wildflower and native plant expert. Helen champions this. Crucially, she knows the best time to prune and plant everything.

The youngest team member is Georgia who, despite not really liking bugs, was the first one into the polytunnel when one of spring’s first peacock butterflies flew in and couldn’t find the way out. She is also the champion for building a bug temple which will be a 5 star version of a bug hotel. Yes, I did say she doesn’t really like bugs. Today, she was busy reshaping a plot.

Finally, from me, a confession. After more than 3 years as a  Yorkshire Wildlife Trust volunteer I have chopped down many things and only once planted anything. So it’s great to see a volunteer group like this focusing on growing things, making links with the local community and doing it all themselves. I reckon I might be back to see the harvest at Stirley Food Festival on Saturday 5th September, find out more about this event which celebrates food and nature here

The Stirley Garden Wildlife group are looking for new 'green fingered' volunteers to join them, they meet every Tuesday at Stirley come rain or shine, visit our online volunteering platform to find out how you can get involved.