Service users spoke to staff about the vegetable waste they
get each week asking what could we do to make use of this.
As there is very limited space in one of our Maidstone Services, we have small back gardens
and just a large car park out the back with small borders. We all spoke
together and decided to recycle the vegetable peelings and any other waste we
could by making a compost heap. We had to try and source things cheaply and
luckily, the industrial units opposite us gave us a few pallets, with the help
of staff and a service user who put his skills to work this was made into a
large box which we started to empty all our compostable stuff into this we
positioned this at the far corner of the car park that was very stony . From
this idea everyone realised the potential of growing things, potato peelings
had started to sprout and raised a lot of interest in growing our own Potatoes,
the only thing that would cause a problem was we had no space. A service user
and his support worker came up with the idea that we could fill tyres with
compost and plant potatoes in these, it would take very little room and we
could stack on top of one another rather than having the backbreaking digging
of the ground to plant them, we manged
to source some tyres from a staff member who was having to get new tyres she
asked to keep these and then just down the road at the garage we manged to get
some more old ones to use, obviously the compost would not be ready yet so we
had to buy some and due to lockdown this was hard to source but everyone
chipped in to buy this.
w service users were becoming more and more interested in
growing their own produce we only had small gaps between the fence and the car
park but we was all determined to have lots of things growing that we could
have the satisfaction of growing and eating. Donations were greatly received
from staff members from tools to seeds and plants. We were on a mission.
We now have several things growing in our little gaps and pots:
Coriander, Parsley, Mint, Potatoes, carrots, peas, beans cabbage, Kale,
radishes, onions, tomatoes and even strawberries we also have, Marigolds, nasturtiums, sun flowers and a
beautiful lily.
Everyone worked so hard together from digging to planting. It
has given everyone who took part satisfaction of home growing and daily
maintenance, everyone feels they have a garden that can be nurtured. Everyone
has done a fantastic job and will be trying our vegetables freshly picked
straight to the plate.
Who would believe all this could be grown from some neglected borders
around a car park.
