Tooling Up to Increase Productivity

Martin with the gridder - purchased with last year’s Closing the Loop fund

For the last nine years, we’ve been fortunate to have a wonderful cohort of customers who have gone the extra mile by becoming Friends of Moss Valley Market Garden and contributing to our Closing the Loop fund. A single annual donation of £10 or more from our Friends has provided invaluable support, helping us develop the business in what is a very economically challenging line of work, where profit margins are extremely tight.

In an increasingly unstable world, it’s become clear that food security is more important than ever. We named the fund Closing the Loop because we believe a big part of the solution lies in forming and strengthening local food systems—built on farms and market gardens that mimic nature’s cyclical patterns and keep local people “in the loop” through direct sales.

In keeping with this ethos, the funds raised over the last nine years have helped us become a more efficient and resilient business, better able to care for our local ecosystem and grow more produce for you, our customers. Thanks to our Friends, we’ve been able to purchase (among many other things) three polytunnels, solar panels for our caravan, and—last year—several new specialist tools for market gardening, including the gridder shown above. The gridder allows us to mark out beds in super quick time, so we know exactly where to plant seedlings without any of the usual time-consuming measuring. Look out for more details on how to support us in our printed Christmas newsletter, arriving with you this week and next.

The gridder - a simple but super effective bit of kit