Local community gardening group launch outdoor kitchen at Platt Fields Market Garden

Manchester Urban Diggers (MUD), a non-profit social enterprise dedicated to improving local food systems, has launched a new outdoor kitchen at Platt Fields Market Garden.

The new facility will host a variety of community engagement and educational events to support MUD’s ongoing work around food, community and wellbeing.

Fallowfield’s Platt Fields Market Garden grows and supplies organic vegetables for local restaurants, while also providing space to host various activities including a forest school, monthly farmers market, arts and crafts sessions and yoga classes.

MUD also runs a social programme for refugees in the local area, offering hot meals every week and this Easter holidays the group is preparing to feed 80 school children a day.

The new kitchen was completed thanks to a £5000 donation from Roma Finance.

Jo Payne, director at Manchester Urban Diggers, said: “Launching the outdoor kitchen and seeing everyone enjoying what we have to offer at the Market Garden has been wonderful. Our mission is always to connect and engage with the local community, and to educate them in the benefits of locally sourced ingredients to their overall wellbeing.

“This new addition to our facilities is going to provide us with new ways to achieve this and we are extremely excited to welcome visitors over the coming weeks and months. We are incredibly grateful for the investment Roma Finance has made to the Platt Fields Market Garden and the practical help they have given us in turning our vision of having an outdoor kitchen into a reality.”