Giffnock woman’s Goody Foody Gardens can get you growing your own vegetables

A helpful new service has launched during lockdown for the increasing number of people in East Renfrewshire who want to grow their own vegetables at home but don’t know where to start.
Laura Molloy, founder of Goody Foody Gardens.Laura Molloy, founder of Goody Foody Gardens.
Laura Molloy, founder of Goody Foody Gardens.

Goody Foody Gardens delivers and installs raised bed vegetable patches into gardens while providing instructions on how to grow and harvest each plant.

Within the first 72 hours from launch, the company received orders for over five tonnes of compost, materials and vegetables seeds and seedlings from families and older enthusiasts in East Renfrewshire and surrounding areas.

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The business is the brain-child of Laura Molloy, who lives in Giffnock.

Julie Cameron, pictured with her children Eve and Abby, was one of the first customers of Goody Foody Gardens.Julie Cameron, pictured with her children Eve and Abby, was one of the first customers of Goody Foody Gardens.
Julie Cameron, pictured with her children Eve and Abby, was one of the first customers of Goody Foody Gardens.

She is a businesswoman and mother of three, who herself wanted to start growing vegetables to keep her kids occupied and get them outdoors and away from screens.

She tried to create a vegetable plot in her back garden without success, while on a maternity leave.

She then decided to work with horticulturalists to solve the problem of how to help people like her, who want to grow their own food at home but just didn’t have the time to research it or know where to start.

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The original business plan involved supplying the beds along with one-to-one support from local vegetable growing experts.

However, lockdown meant the gardeners could not directly support families, due to social distancing guidelines.

To overcome this challenge the business changed to offering contact-free delivery and installation, along with how-to-video growing guides and lots of online support.

To launch Goody Foody Gardens, Laura raised start-up funding of £10,000 through a Crowdfunder campaign coupled with a grant from Royal Bank of Scotland’s #Backherbusiness campaign and opened an online shop on April 17.

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People can order online a delivery or contact-free installation of a Goody Foody Garden into their home garden. They receive a 6ft x 3ft raised bed with everything required to start growing, including plants, compost, plants and seeds, wildlife protection, growing and planting guides, plant markers.

To make it easy, there’s also the videos explaining what to do, a What’s app group support and email advice.

Julie Cameron, from Giffnock, was one of the first to have a Goody Foody Garden installed.

She said: “We were excited to have the Goody Foody Garden installed. I have two young children and they have been watering the bed and checking for green shoots every day. I am really looking forward to being able to pick and eat vegetables from our own garden!”

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The beds can be installed into any property which has a flat sunny spot with easy access from the roadside for delivery.

They can be placed on any surface such as slabs, grass, stones and paving but decking is not recommended as it will eventually rot.

Goody Foody Gardens are based in East Renfrewshire and delivers to South Lanarkshire, East Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, and Glasgow.

They are receiving requests from all over Scotland and hope to be able to deliver to many more areas in the coming months.

Anyone interested can find out more at the website Goody Foody Gardens

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