Count your chickens…

Growing your own fruit and veg is good for mental and physical health, builds communities, and is tasty too. Yet the grow-your-own movement has bypassed people living in social housing because they don’t have the outdoor space or lack know-how. But one landlord is showing that, when it comes to sowing seeds, it reaches parts of northern England that others can’t.

More than 1,000 Transpennine Housing tenants grew vegetables this year after group members Pennine Housing 2000, based in the Pennines, West Yorkshire and Sheffield and Lancashire-based Green Vale Homes offered all 15,000 of them free seed potatoes and grow sacks, strawberry hanging baskets, lettuce pots and tomato plants.

Now the two landlords are asking tenants to identify disused land for community orchards, herb gardens and allotments.

Val Morris, tenant involvement manger at PH 2000, says it’s important to give residents the chance to grow their own food. ‘All over the country people are getting involved in growing fruit and veg,’ she says. ‘The bit that’s not happening is with the poorest people. Two thirds of our stock is flats. A lot of tenants are interested in getting their hands on some of Pennine’s land.’

Tenant Val Barker spotted a site behind her flat in Mixenden, Halifax, after being inspired by her neighbour who had begun growing vegetables.

‘We all got excited about that,’ she says. ‘We thought if Pennine gave us land we could all grow veg. Without advertising it, I must have had about 20 or 25 people approach me about growing vegetables there.’

Transpennine has put £3,500 into its pilot projects - Edible Pennine and Edible Green Vale. They are designed and supported by Sally Baker, a co-ordinator for Gardening for Health, an NHS Calderdale initiative which delivers healthy living projects, working with schools, local communities and workplaces. Ms Baker’s role is funded by a two-year partnership between PH 2000 and NHS Calderdale, through the Department of Health’s Healthy Towns initiative.

‘Working with Pennine tenants is the whole focus,’ says Ms Baker. ‘We’re looking at improving general health through physical activity. Gardening is good for mental health as well. It helps with obesity, as people are getting more exercise and they’re eating healthier food.’

Out of touch

Since spring, the pilot projects have supported tenants in growing and cooking healthy food. As well as gardening kits, the pilots have provided apple trees, cookery demonstrations and the IncrEdible roadshow, which has taken the concept to Transpennine’s estates throughout summer.

In the Pennine town of Todmorden, there was already a local grow-your-own society, called Incredible Edible Todmorden, which the social landlord has started working with. Co-founder Mary Clear describes PH 2000 as ‘our bridge into the estates and to the very people that have, by and large, lost touch with growing and eating healthy food’.

‘We have mostly back-to-back houses without gardens in Todmorden, but a lot of the social houses still have gardens,’ she adds.

Tenant Ms Barker adds: ‘It’s hard for the NHS as part of the Healthy Towns initiative in Halifax to come into an estate and say, “this is what you’re going to do”. It doesn’t work in Mixenden. We’ll take affront.’

‘The NHS and others don’t have the relationships with our tenants that we do,’ says Ms Morris. ‘We don’t have to go and find people because we’ve got a solid tenant community. This is cheap and easy. It’s something landlords can do and should be doing.’

Ms Morris hopes Lottery funding will help replicate the work that has begun in Halifax and on other Transpennine estates.

‘This isn’t some silly adventure,’ she says. ‘It makes good business sense. We’re getting people looking after gardens, taking ownership, having pride in their environment, thinking this a good place to live. It’s a chicken and egg situation. People have said they’re interested in looking after apple trees or soft fruit. Now we’ve got some NHS Gardening for Health workers we can do that development work. Once someone starts [growing], others think “I can do that”.’

The first of five joint conferences between PH 2000 and IET takes place on 14 November in Todmorden.
val.morris@ph2k.org.uk

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