Bristol woman opens organic food shop

Opening a shop selling organic fruit and vegetables grown by volunteers in gardens across Knowle would be a dream come true for a local woman.

Knowle resident Mil Lusk, a 44-year-old mother-of-three imagines a shop full of locally-grown chemical-free fruit and vegetables, all grown from gardens across the estate.

Grandmother-of-one Miss Lusk is the project manager of not-for-profit company, Buried Treasure, an environmental gardening social enterprise for Knowle, based at The Park.

Buried Treasure, which was co-founded by Cathi Lillis-James, celebrates its 10-year anniversary in January next year, and currently sells a small quantity of vegetables from The Park and at Re-store, in Filwood Broadway.

But tree specialist Miss Lusk, who was educated at Windmill Hill City Farm in the 1980s, hopes that within the next few years, a co-op will be opened in Knowle, selling locally-grown food. Buried Treasure has just started producing its own vegetables bags, sold to local people for about £5 a bag.

Team Fab (Fight Against Bags) at St Barnabas Church, in Daventry Road, make recycled bags from old curtains and duvets, and the Better Food Company supplies some of the vegetables.

Miss Lusk, and her team of six volunteers, are currently growing winter salad, including rocket, lettuce, chard, and beetroot leaves, to be added to the veg bags.

She told the Evening Post: "Our ultimate aim is to have a food co-op, and to be making our own vegetable boxes from the estate. We hope to create employment, we want people in the estate to grow vegetables in their gardens, and be able to sell any excess.

"My dream is for there to be no neglected gardens in the estate. We don't want to get rid of local green-grocers, but maybe help to supply them. When new houses are built here, there will be a rich heritage of growing vegetables and flowers that will already exist.

"I want people to walk down the street and be able to pick an apple from a tree and eat it, then cross the road and pick a pear, and be full by the time they reach the end of the street."

Everything at Buried Treasure's garden centre has been donated or salvaged from a skip. There are old sinks used as herb gardens, and baths that will soon be recycled into water features to attract wildlife. And there's a polytunnel where Miss Lusk grows flowers and plants, which locals can buy for a small cost.

The team of volunteers are currently getting ready for the winter and are excited about their winter salad.

Miss Lusk said: "Instead of buying your sweet lettuce from Asda, you could be getting it from us, with caterpillars and maggots and all completely natural."

She added: "We are just going to have to do it and see. Will we be able to push wheelbarrows all over Knowle full of tools in the rain? Will the plants cope in Knowle? We like to think that Knowle is one big garden. It could crash and burn. But the more we work a garden, the better it gets. We need to be in it for the long haul."