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For all enquiries please contact hello@honeybeefarmacy.com

HONEYBEE FARMACY CIC is an agroecological non profit organisation. We work to restore vitality to land, seed, human, and honeybee.

Established as a community interest company in 2018, we work with schools and community groups to help strengthen local food systems. Our team has a combined 40+ years of horticultural experience, we use this to create and support agroecological projects such as school and community gardens, seed saving workshops and seed libraries, honeybee and wild bee friendly activities. In 2024, our funded community projects are Cropwell Community Garden and Green Thumbs Up. We are currently refocusing our seed work as a new Midlands Seed Hub. We work with schools under our Edible Classrooms project.

📍Based in Nottingham City and Rushcliffe

FARMACY

We grow open pollinated varieties of vegetables, culinary and medicinal herbs, soft fruits and flowers. We raise plants and save seeds. Our approach is agroecological, working with nature and being aware of all things that feed in/out of our work. This includes prioritising biodiversity, building closed loop systems, and sourcing materials from exploitation free supply chains. We apply organic and biodynamic principles to build the vitality of our crops and gardens, we are not certified due to the individual and small scale nature of our spaces, this is a long term ambition of ours.

🍅 Produce grown in school gardens is given to students and staff, in canteen meals or enjoyed within allotment sessions.

🥬 Produce from Cropwell Community Garden will be available throughout the year from our micro-nursery stand / honesty box.

🌽 Produce from our private gardens feeds us, we are mostly self-sufficient and share excess at the community garden stand.

Our garden methods

No pesticides, fungicides, herbicides are sprayed on our plants and they are not allowed within our gardens. Slugs and snails have so far been managed by birds and hedgehogs, we encourage bird populations but do have to cover our leafy greens with netting. The ladybirds and predatory wasps seem to take care of aphids, good garden hygiene and keeping seedlings/plants stress free helps reduce pests and diseases. For heavy feeding crops we use Maxicrop certified organic seaweed extract to supplement our fermented plant teas. Water is a valuable resource, we water by hand mostly with rainwater and only use hosepipes to fill tanks when low. Our seeds are sourced from seed libraries and agroecological UK producers.

We also use the no-dig method and build fertility with homemade compost and worm castings. Anything which we can’t compost we take to our local farmer who has a compost making site, with the end product spread on his fields. We are hoping to invest in a chipper to close the loop and put this organic matter back into our own gardens. Instead of using manure, we buy mushroom compost to start new garden beds and for any heavy mulching, to avoid aminopyralid contamination. To sow and pot on seedlings, we supplement with Moorland Gold or Fertile Fibre, a certified organic and peat free medium. It is expensive to buy single bags, so we buy in bulk and are happy to share bulk orders with other local growers.

See also: Agroecology values of Cropwell Community Garden.

HONEYBEES

We started out as an organisation promoting gentle beekeeping approaches and providing education on the history, role and treatment of honeybees within our food systems. As of 2024, we have reduced our beekeeping activities to a small private apiary, our honey is not for sale.

OUR TEAM

Xanthea // co-ordinator

Xanthea founded Honeybee Farmacy CIC. She has an MSc in Food Security, specialising in seed sovereignty. Formerly based within the Sustainable Agriculture Research Group at Nottingham Trent University, she worked as a research assistant in horticulture and later in agri-food supply chains. A Fellow of the School for Social Entrepreneurs, and former Director for other local food/farming organisations. In 2024 she is building on her seed sovereignty background as part of Gaia Foundation’s Seed Sovereignty Programme year-long seed production training cohort.

George // head gardener

George is a life long gardener and founder of Back to the Roots Gardening, an ecological and wildlife friendly garden maintenance service. Prior to starting his own business, he worked as school farm grounds worker at Edwalton Primary. George is passionate about growing high quality produce and oversees building/landscaping work of our projects and growing spaces. He has a Diploma in British Conservation and a wealth of practical experience in horticulture, arboriculture, landscaping, building, animal management, and teaching children.

Bethan // asst. co-ordinator

Bethan is a consultant for the Urban Agricultural Consortium and former head gardener at a 2* Michelin restaurant. She has recently been leading feasibility research for Nottinghamshire County Council to develop a local FarmStart programme. Bethan is a florist and has been a committee member of Nottingham Organic Gardeners for over 13 years organising community garden workshops and events. In late 2024 she will travel to North America to undertake urban farming research as a Nottingham Roosevelt Memorial Travelling Scholar.

Honeybee Farmacy CIC is a Community Interest Company registered in England & Wales: Company number. 11688215
Registered office: Sneinton Market Unit 6, Suit 59, Gedling Street, Nottingham, NG1 1DS

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