This column is written by Clare Mahdiyone who is chief executive of the Stroud Valleys Project and passionate about the environment.

September is national organic month, a month-long campaign designed to encourage more people to try organic as a way to promote and educate people about organic food and farming practices.

Following a year of unprecedented environmental protest and ground-breaking research, there’s never been a better moment to shout about the role organic farming has to play in the climate change debate by benefitting nature, wildlife, our planet, our health and building healthy soils.

If we buy more organic food and farming means that together, we can slow down climate change.

Admittedly organic is usually more expensive, if that’s a barrier the other option is to grow your own fruit and vegetables without using chemicals.

At Stroud Valleys Project we have allotment space and various growing areas where we grow (and cook and share) produce with our volunteers.

At the moment we seem to have more cucumbers than we can eat! As a result we have been pickling them for the winter.

If you would like to learn more about growing your own do get in touch and find out about joining one of our volunteer teams.

Our volunteers get a chance to get involved lots of different types of work, for example Waterscapes is a new project we are working on.

Struggling salmon, and a wide range of other fish species, will now have improved passage along the River Frome following the rewetting of an old channel (paleochannel) at Bond’s Mill in Stonehouse.

Our volunteers joined in with the work on site last week to help create a gravel bed in the river.

This project, involving partners from across the Severn Vale, including WWT, Farming and Wildlife Advisory Group South-West, Severn Rivers Trust and Stroud Valleys Project has been made possible by major funding from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.

Over the next two years, work will be carried out at four key sites along the River Frome, as well as at WWT Slimbridge and Walmore Common SSSI.