Grow and taste bug takes root

Volunteers get dug in with Grow and Taste project

The scent of freshly turned earth and manure is a magical allure for some people – and several of them volunteered at a Rochdale homeless person hostel to create a vegetable garden area.

When the call went out for green-fingered colleagues at RBH to get involved with a “from garden to plate” project the response was immediate.

RBH Communities Partnership worker Davina Unsworth said: “We had the idea for a Grow and Taste wellbeing project to encourage people staying at the hostel to better understand the value of fresh fruit and vegetables as well as getting the benefits of outdoor exercise.

“With the support of external funding – including £2,000 from Tesco – we set about converting disused ground into growing areas for potatoes, carrots, pears, apples, plums, strawberries and lots of other fruit and veg. People at the hostel help colleagues to plant, care and collect the food for use in the kitchen. The physical exercise is great and the knowledge that the food has been grown just outside the window gives a brilliant sense of achievement.”

RBH staff worked with people at the hostel to clear and prepare the land before planting.

By July most of it will be in full bloom and a month later will be ready to eat.

The team is so proud of this work – their first year – that they are entering their project in the Rochdale in Bloom It’s Your Neighbourhood event.

Davina added: “It would be good to get good judges’ comments, but the big benefit is just the taking part and showing what we can achieve in a small patch in the heart of Rochdale.”