Community, care and connection: The Muddy Millers garden opens up at Islington Mill

A brand-new urban concrete haven for bees, veggies and humans has opened at Islington Mill, built as a respite from the gentrification of Salford with an aim to help locals reconnect to nature and one another.

Born out of the pandemic, Klaudia Jedyka created Muddy Millers after finding that there were few community gardens or green spaces in the Salford area.

As part of the Manchester Urban Diggers (MUD) who are also the lovely lot behind the well-loved south Manchester favourite, Platt Fields Market Garden, the project initially centred around urban food growing, but has now completely blossomed into a fully-fledged community endeavour.

Totally sustainable in its origins, Muddy Millers has aptly utilised resources that were either donated, dumped or seemingly done for like unwanted benches for seating or out-of-use concrete mixers as cool, industrial-style plant pots.

As well as completely transforming the space into a green city oasis – Muddy Millers vouches for an ethical ethos of repurposing, upcycling and basically using what you’ve got around you.

All about human connection, local involvement and an inclusive community coming together to fight against gentrification and harmful developers, Muddly Millers is a brilliant up-and-coming venture to get those green fingers thoroughly stuck in to.

Any volunteers wanting to get involved and join this new green scene can message Muddy Millers via Instagram or drop into one of their sessions that takes place every Wednesday from 2pm-5pm.