About us
The Wash House Garden was borne out of a desire to feel a sense of mutual support and solidarity in a society in which communities have been decimated across the generations, and to grow and eat delicious food that nourished body and soul, soil and planet in spite of our globalised, environmentally damaging, and frankly bland modern food system. Faced with these at times overwhelming issues, and in the hope of inspiring ripples of change, here in Glasgow’s East End we are taking a small step in the direction we would like to see our society, environment and economy move in.
Our aims are:
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- To actively contribute to food sovereignty and land justice in the context of urban Glasgow & Scotland and to stand in solidarity with struggles for land justice and land reparation around the world.
- To engage the local community in ideas exchange in a safe and fun environment.
- To provide the local community with a natural, biodiverse resource.
- To empower the LGBTQ+ community in Parkhead & Glasgow with a safe place to learn and play.
The Team
Luna
Luna (she/her) is a Community Grower working in Glasgow. With a background in care work, she is interested in the healing capacities of the natural world and works to increase connections between communities and the land. Luna takes a participatory approach to facilitation, believing that groups can learn and work best by sharing ideas and knowledges, and that fostering a sense of autonomy and ownership in a project ensures sustained interest and commitment. Outside of horticulture and community work Luna also volunteers at a forest school and pursues interests in dance & movement and counselling & listening skills.
Brian
Brian (they/he) joined the gardening team in January 2024, wanting to apply the skills that they had developed in previous years through their HNC in Horticulture and various other gardening projects and placements. They are passionate about agroecology, soil science and remediation, and food and seed sovereignty.
They are a trad flute player and are re-learning Irish; from an ethnobotanical lens they are interested in looking at how land, language, and culture are interconnected and shape one another. They view land as not just the physical environment and the borders that divide it, but as a cultural fountainhead in which we play a vital role. In their eyes, language, culture, and the land are inseparable. Alongside growing veg, they’ll be helping run the Friday volunteer sessions for 2024.
Jac
Jac (they/them) is a food grower and community organiser. Jac is part of the garden team at the Wash House Garden and oversees the Veg Box and Commercial Sales. They joined the Wash House Garden as a Co-Director and gardener in 2022. Jac has worked in community and market gardens since 2016 and studied horticulture both at Plumpton Agricultural College in Brighton and at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. They love to combine their passion for plants and the natural world with their hopes and dreams of building a better world, and have found their calling in growing food and organising for a better food system. Outside of the Wash House Garden, Jac is involved in trans activism and community herbalism projects.
Elaina
Elaina (she/her) joined as co-director in 2024 and is the project coordinator for our beautiful family of volunteers, events and community outreach. She has a career in ornamentals spanning over 10 years and trained both at SRUC & Royal Botanic Gardens Ediburgh to attain her BSc Honours degree in Horticulture. It was during these studies that she met Jac and developed a friendship borne out of solitary and shared passion for ecology, regenerative land practice and meeting each other as two queer plant nerds! Elaina’s professional vocation is to empower individuals to learn and value our natural ecosystems, develop local food systems and empower individual health and wellbeing through nature based connection. Her work outside of The Wash House includes managing two other community-led urban agriculture and therapeutic community gardens in Glasgow. Elaina believes that land based knowledge and understanding is a privilege that has been lost in our culture and her work is rooted in sharing her passions for plants, soil, fungi, insects, birds, bees and microbes with everyone! When she isn’t covered in mud or lost in discussions on global food systems and ecology you can find her foraging, surfing, wandering the highlands & islands, and playing with her beloved dog Bodie!
Amy
Amy (she/her) joined as a co-director in 2024 after first getting to know the garden when she rented beds for her cut flower business, Remedy Fields. With a firm belief in the healing nature of plants, she quickly fell in love with the site and has huge hopes for how it can continue to nurture the local community in the years to come.
Amy specialises in medicinal herbs and flowers, but has experience working in many areas of horticulture and community garden settings. She is also a trained dancer, with movement practices forming a central part of her life as a farmer (believe it or not!) She is passionate about how embodiment can help create a more expansive and integrated view of regenerative principles, and aims to share this research more with the local growing community in the future.
Our Founders
Max Johnson
Max founded the Wash House Garden in 2021 after developing the site into a market garden in its previous iteration s Greenheart Growers 3 years prior. He is a longtime veg grower, foodie and nature geek who was initially inspired by following his belly until he realised home-grown food is the best thing ever. He brought this passion, twinned with a reverent and practical engagement with nature, to The Wash House Garden, whether that be growing organic fruit and veg, weaving wreaths and baskets, or facilitating workshops.
Max has now moved on to running his own Basketry workshop but he is still a part of the Wash House Garden family and you can often see him there teaching willow weaving or gardening workshops.
Kim Moore
Kim was a Co-Director, sessional gardener and outreach worker for the Wash House from 2021-2023. Feeding people is one of her favourite things, so working as a market gardener was inevitable. Nurture, care and listening is at the heart of her work which intersects across working as a musician, doula and gardener. Kim started and ran our gardening project for Amma Birth Companions. Her warm and welcoming presence is dearly missed at the garden!
Collaborators & Funders
Based on years of collaborative action in Glasgow and beyond, the Food & Climate Action project aims to work alongside local communities to co-create a more resilient food system that is fairer and kinder to both people and the planet.
GCFN are a massive support for us, helping with funding (for example for our bee school), co-delivery of workshops and general advice and support.
