In March 2020, as the first COVID-19 lockdown began, I did something that inconsequential at the time: I started a Facebook group called the Women’s Land Army.
Inspired by the British wartime Women’s Land Army – where women came together to work the land during crisis – I wanted to create a space where women could share knowledge about growing, gardening, and cultivation. People were heading into their gardens, armed with shovels and packets of seeds. I wanted to nurture and encourage this return to self sufficiency. It was to be an online place for mutual support during an escalating and uncertain time.
Five years later, that “small” group has become a thriving global community of over 3,000 members.
What It Was Meant to Be
The Women’s Land Army was always about more than vegetables and flowers. While it appeared to be about agriculture and growing, it was really about creating a network of support. So many women don’t have much confidence when it comes to cultivation – they think they don’t know enough, or that their knowledge isn’t valuable.
This space was designed to counter that. To say: your knowledge matters. Your questions matter. Your failures and successes both matter- we’re in this together.
What It Became
The community grew organically, almost by itself. Members from all over the world – spanning multiple continents – began sharing:
- Photos of their gardens, harvests, and growing experiments
- Practical advice about soil, seeds, pests, and seasons
- Stories of starting to grow for the first time
- Support during difficult moments
- Celebration of small victories.
- The group became self-sustaining. People keep adding to it, asking questions, offering encouragement. It’s a living, breathing archive of women’s cultivation knowledge and practice.
Local Impact, Global Reach
While the community is global, it’s also had profound local impact. Women in my own area – the Scottish Highlands – have told me they were inspired to start growing in their gardens because of the group. They saw other women doing it and thought: “Maybe I can too.”
That’s the power of collective practice. When we see others trying, failing, learning, and succeeding, it gives us permission to do the same.
Cultivation as Feminist Practice
Looking back, I realize the Women’s Land Army is about reclaiming women’s relationship to land and labor. Historically, women have always grown food, tended gardens, and held botanical knowledge. But that knowledge is often dismissed as “just gardening” – domestic, amateur, not serious.
By creating a space where 3,000 women share their cultivation practices, we’re saying: this IS serious knowledge. This IS valuable work. We are the experts of our own growing.
What’s Next
The Women’s Land Army continues to grow and evolve. As I enter my MA Fine Art program at Central Saint Martins, I’m beginning to see this community not just as a support group, but as a significant collaborative art project.
What happens when we recognize a five-year gardening community as cultural production? What does it mean to honour everyday women’s cultivation knowledge as expertise? How does this collective practice challenge who gets to be called “artist”?
I’m exploring these questions through potential exhibitions and collaborative projects that celebrate the incredible work these 3,000 women have been doing – whether they think of it as “art” or not.
Reflection
Sometimes the most meaningful work we do doesn’t feel like work at all. It feels like necessity, like reaching out during crisis, like trying to help.
The Women’s Land Army taught me that cultivation – of plants, of community, of confidence – is never just individual. It’s collective. It’s care work. And it’s deeply, profoundly feminist.
Thank you to every member who has shared their knowledge, asked their questions, and shown up to grow with us.
Here’s to five more years of growing together.