Overview
Oxgangs Community Gardeners started in 2023 as a local initiative supported by Edible Estates.
In August 2025, we became a registered charity with OSCR, the Scottish charities regulator.
We are working with Growing Together to get us off to a good start and to secure funding to transform the overgrown former Oxgangs bowling green into a lively community garden.
We held our inaugural AGM in October 2025 and are looking forward to welcoming new members from the local community to help us grow our charity and our projects.
If you would like to join us, or to support our work by volunteering or with a donation, please use our contact form to get in touch.
Why we’re needed
Edinburgh is a city where wealth and poverty often exist just across the street from each other. Maps showing the social deprivation index across Edinburgh clearly show islands and corridors of red, pink and white amidst the wealthier green parts of town. These parts of Edinburgh are often characterised by lower employment and incomes, lower access to housing and worse health outcomes.
Oxgangs, Firrhill and Colinton Mains (circled) make up one of these islands. Many local residents live in blocks of flats without access to a garden.
Gardening helps both adults and children to connect with nature, spend more time outdoors, get a regular workout that doesn’t require a gym membership and provide fresh, healthy fruit and vegetables.
However, the nearest council-managed allotments are more than two miles away in Redhall, and had a waiting list of sixteen years in 2023. Even if allotments were available, renting an allotment and obtaining the tools, seeds, plants and getting transport would be unaffordable for many.
Oxgangs is therefore a great place to establish a community garden and support our budding gardeners with tools and some help to get started so they can reap the mental and physical health benefits that those in more affluent areas of town can access more readily.