We use the money from stakeholder subscriptions and the sale of produce to buy most of what the Farm needs. We usually plan infrastructure projects in stages, according to what we can afford . This year, one of our projects is getting a boost from a local grant.
Southampton Airport Spitfire Wellbeing Fund
The recently-established Southampton Airport Community Health and Wellbeing Fund provides financial support to certain types of local community organisation, charities and groups. These groups must support initiatives that reduce health inequalities and improve health and wellbeing. The fund focuses on three areas:
- Physical activity
- Mental wellbeing
- Access to open spaces, including green space.
Highbridge Community Farm meets the criteria. We’re just a few miles from Southampton Airport and we aim to give our members benefits in all three of the Fund focus areas. So, a small group of HCF members put together an application for funding to upgrade our irrigation system .
Our watering challenge
We have 20 vegetable plots, four orchards, and a Soft Fruit area – and they all need water for the crops to thrive. We’re lucky to have access to a balancing pond on site but getting the water from there to the plots has been a long-standing challenge. Any HCF member with at least one summer of experience will recognise the work involved!
When the Farm project first started, the team had to lug watering cans from the pond to the plots. The first evolution of our system brought a petrol pump in the pond to pump water through donated fire hoses into ten Intermediate Bulk Containers (IBCs) situated at each pair of plots. This made water accessible to the plots without the long trek to the pond for each watering can – but it was still tough. Some areas were still a fair way from an IBC and, without careful coordination, teams could find the IBCs empty of water.
In line with our commitment to reduce chemical and fossil fuel use, in 2022, we installed an electric pump in the pond. The pump is powered by two second-hand batteries and charged by a second-hand solar system. This drip-fills the 10 IBCs through permanent, underground piping.
In mid-2023, the irrigation system was expanded to include additional IBCs and to reach the tree orchards and the Soft Fruit area, bringing the total number of IBCs to 21. The Soft Fruit area is furthest from the pond so we installed a separate drip feed system with an independent solar panel and battery kit.
While we’ve made great strides from those early days of lugging individual watering cans from the pond, it’s become clear that the our current pumps, batteries, and solar panels are struggling.
Our grant
Our application to the Airport Community Health and Wellbeing Fund to upgrade our irrigation system was successful. We’ll be able to purchase new batteries, solar panels, and cabling for the pond and the Soft Fruit area extension. New IBCs will bring water even closer to the plots. Our Infrastructure (“A’) Team will do the installation, meaning that our application maximised our needs for equipment instead of labour.
The next phase of irrigation
The upgrade will make it possible to irrigate at night and in the early morning. This prevents the rapid evaporation that is currently experienced during daytime watering, particularly during very hot weather. Climate change events cause ever-more frequent and unpredictable heat waves which stress our crops and orchard trees so it’s important that we can water when and how it’s most effective.
Using solar for the system makes us less dependable on burning fossil fuels, making it more sustainable for Highbridge Community Farm and the environment, in line with our ethos.
The upgraded irrigation system will help our members too. All teams can rely on having access to IBCs that are reliably full of water, no matter when they come to the Farm to do their watering work. We’re not hanging up our watering cans just yet but more IBCs means that we can fill them closer to where the water is needed. We won’t have to carry them as far.
It takes a village …
Thanks to the HCF members who designed the irrigation system, to those who identified the funding opportunity and put the application together, to those who will manage the funding and procurement, and those who will work on site to make it happen. We really are a community working together.