Our next events

Unless otherwise mentioned, meetings will be once a month on a Saturday, 11am-12:30pm at The Almonry.

Note that for the next few months our friends that perform the hand massages are taking a break for a few months, and will be back with us sometime in the spring.

  • January 24th we have a talk on Mycorrhizal fungi from local nature-guru Doug Edworthy. Please reserve your place by messaging us on O793O285951
  • February 21st we have a talk on Wine Making. Our speaker David makes wines from almost any organic material, so should be interesting! Please reserve your place by messaging us on O793O285951
  • March 21st we’re back to the usual plant/seed swaps and chatter
  • April 18th we’re back to the usual plant/seed swaps and chatter
  • May 23rd the usual plant/seed swaps, plus a Hand-tie posy workshop with Marilyn Ireland. The posy workshop is limited to 10 places, so reserve your place by messaging us on O793O285951. If you’re attending the workshop then bring 3 large flowers and some greenery if you can

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You may have spotted one of our flyers around the town…

What is “The Growing Network”?

We aim to provide a focal point for local growing enthusiasts to meet, socialise, exchange food, materials and knowledge. Our objectives are:
1) To help alleviate loneliness
2) To improve local resilience to climate change, cost of living crises and possible scarcity of food by giving people the skills, tools and knowledge to grow their own food.
3) To foster community cohesion and promote kindness, altruism and sharing because no money is involved, everything is given freely
4) To make growing healthy food more accessible to all, and thereby
5) To improve the health of participants 
The events are based around a model which has been running in Beckley and Bexhill for several years, their tagline being “Bring what you can and take what you need”. Those established groups have a strong community aspect. The Battle group formed in March 2025 and had it’s first event in June 2025

I’m interested! What does an event look like?

We’ve had 30 to 40 people at the first few events, lots of chatter about gardens and growing in general, tea and cake, and of course bringing & taking veggies, plants, seeds, etc. We advertise as being open 11am-12:30pm and people pop in and out throughout that time.
Volunteers from A Touch Of Gentleness provide a lovely hand massage for free, and have proved popular. (Note that they won’t be attending from October 2025 until Spring 2026)

In the winter months when there’s little in the way of growing going on we have speakers presenting on a range of relevant topics, and a few workshops too.

Have I heard that name before?

Growing Networks are appearing across the south-east of England, the nearest ones in Beckley and Bexhill have been running successfully for a few years. Details on their activities can be found here. We got to learn about the Growing Network concept when their founder Jo Morphy gave a talk at a Battle Assembles meeting in March 2025, a few of us thought it would be great to start something similar in Battle.

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