The green fingers of Greenwich

A piece of dog-fouled land on the Nightingale estate in London’s Greenwich has been tuned into a flourishing community garden sprouting corn, tomatoes, cabbages and blackberries in the space of 18 months.

Welcare, a charity-run community centre for children and families, is located next to the 150 square foot former health hazard. When staff saw an opportunity to give it a facelift, they grabbed it with both hands.

It all started when they heard about a local art and environmental group called Avant Gardening. It was providing mobile allotments for communities to try growing their own fruit and vegetables. Welcare got in touch and in May 2009 the charity launched its own gardening scheme using one of Avant’s mobile raised gardening beds, which it placed triumphantly on the troublesome piece of land.

‘The idea was to reclaim that land for the community to use and come together,’ explains Seval Tahsin, manager of Welcare.

The project is part of Capital Growth, a food growing initiative which was set up with £87,000 from the London Development Agency and is now funded by London mayor Boris Johnson, who is investing £927,806 between 2009 and 2012, and £300,000 from The Big Lottery Fund’s local food scheme.

Inside Housing first reported on the project in July, when former Fleet Street editor Rosie Boycott turned food advisor to Mr Johnson and wrote about Capital Growth’s Edible Estates Competition (see box: Edible estates). The contest ran from June to the beginning of this month with Welcare’s allotment making the shortlist nine out of 20 entries.

Moving the earth

Mobile gardening provides a risk-free way for groups like the one on the Nightingale estate to get involved with growing their own food. Using removable beds allowed the Capital Growth team to prove to Greenwich Council that there was community interest, without committing land to the project or spending money on landscaping.

‘The local authority had its doubts and thought that [a gardening project] would be wrecked. It was worried no one would look after it,’ explains Paul Green, curator of Avant Gardening.

The Nightingale estate mobile allotment was on the land near the Welcare community centre for nine months. During this time Avant held workshops on gardening, cooking and even held a Halloween party to involve the estate community.

‘At the end, we could say [to the council] there was a high level of engagement and no one vandalised it,’ says Mr Green. ‘If we work with the kids on food workshops they’re less likely to vandalise [the garden].’

More than vegetables

Following a consultation by Greenwich Council to gauge community interest in a permanent garden, Welcare now has 17 beds. It has involved 30 children from 20 families in the gardening project.

Ms Tahsin says people can take any food and access the garden 24 hours a day. It has been ‘self-policing’ she says, because involving children in the gardening workshops foster a sense of pride in their allotments.

‘Food is a great leveller,’ adds Ms Tahsin. ‘We have people from the Vietnamese community giving us pak choi seedlings.’ This year, the community’s gardeners have grown corn, tomatoes, blackberries, cabbages and seven fruit bushes. ‘We grow things seasonally,’ she says.

One project held at the Welcare community centre involved an artist collecting blackberries from local land with the children. They created dye from the blackberries with which they coloured clothes and put on a fashion show. They also ran a potato workshop, growing, harvesting then making potato salad for local children. ‘Kids don’t understand that chips come from potatoes - there’s a little boy who said, “No, chips aren’t potatoes”,’ she recalls.

Sarah Williams, Capital Growth project officer at Sustain, says it chose to focus on social housing for Edible Estates because ‘these estates often have large areas of open space around them, but they are not always imaginatively designed, well-used or well-maintained’.

She adds: ‘They can also be hotspots for anti-social behaviour, dumping or just used as dog toilets, which gives local people the motivation to get involved.’

The project seems to be working - housing associations Family Mosaic and London & Quadrant have recently signed up to the scheme.

‘We will be identifying potential spaces and inspiring more residents to get started on projects throughout our 20,000 London properties,’ says Yvonne Arrowsmith, group operations director at Family Mosaic, which plans to work with Capital Growth to support at least 15 food growing spaces.

Repairs and maintenance company Mears has pledged to help ten communities in which it operates to take part in the project by providing labour.
Food growing projects have already helped people reclaim their open spaces and enabled housing providers to engage with new sections of the community, concludes Capital Growth’s Ms Williams. ‘We now want to share these experiences with others’.