It has been another incredibly busy month; it started with a day-long field study visit by 20 students of sustainability from the University of Leeds.
This is the third year their research has been carried out in Tod so has become an annual event.
They started at 10am and were given a presentation explaining Incredible Edible, this was followed by a tour of our town centre growing sites then back for lunch and questions.
After lunch the students braved the streets of Tod to ask people about what they thought about IET and to quiz them on their shopping habits. A huge thank you to everyone who stopped and answered the questionnaires. The university must think this good place to do their research the way they come back every year.
The general outcomes were presented to us at afternoon tea we learned a lot from this and later in the year when all the statistics are pulled together we get a full report so it’s good for the students and for Tod. We had other visitors too, a group of localities community workers and also people from the Netherlands and Scotland - the tour season is certainly starting to pick up.
We do try to build in shopping time; one visitor went home with cheese from the indoor market, plus smoked garlic and handmade chocolate and ate two lunches for good measure. All these little spends add up and help boost our local economy.
But it hasn’t been just about visitors you may have noticed all the work that has started tidying the apothecary garden at the health centre, there are exciting plans to bring it to life in new was so watch this space.
The tree pruning and bramble clearing at Harley Wood Orchard got off to a flying start on Sunday with local volunteers who had been on a free pruning course putting what they had learned into practice led by our branch manager Shirley Harris.
There is a huge amount of work to do so more will be done on Sunday, March 29, to get on top of things, this will hopefully result in lots of lovely fruit to pick in the autumn for everyone.
It certainly is going to be an all-round busy month, but that’s the way we like it because it means things are getting done to help us help our incredible town.
To find out more about us or to volunteer visit our website www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk