This month we have been looking carefully at healthy sustainability. Our Can You Dig It competition is run each year. It’s an incredibly popular contest which sees people we support, and colleagues, compete in a number of categories including ‘Transformation of the Year’, ‘Indoor Gardener’ and ‘Mighty Veg Patch’.
Another category is ‘Kitchen Garden to Table’ which celebrates examples of services taking ingredients grown in their own gardens, allotments or other growing areas and using them in creative ways.
There are dozens of amazing examples of great ‘Kitchen Garden to Table’; at Aberbeeg, herbs grown by service users are used to make teas which are sold in the hospital’s café, for example. Aderyn’s bounty of fruit and vegetables are used to create delicious meals including crumbles and courgettes grown at Ballington House – last year’s winning entry – were grown to literally huge success and used in meals too.
Veggies were turned into soups, salads and even stuffed peppers at Healthlinc Apartments. The Chimneys also had bumper crops of fruits and veg to use to create meals. Tomatoes grown at Thornford Park were used in a delicious chutney. There was blackberry jam at Sturt House and Ty Grosvenor’s potatoes and beetroot offered delicious additions to the menu there. There were tomatoes and carrots at Tottle Brook House too.
The people supported at The Deans Neurological Centre opted to create two wheelchair accessible potting beds to grow a range of ingredients to include in healthy meals – including pak choi!
And the Community Houses at Hurtsfield transformed an area of the garden to include a small poly-tunnel to plant tomatoes plants, chillis, strawberries and peppers while they used a growing sack for potatoes. It was a great success with the tomatoes used in salad and sandwiches, the chillis used to make chilli and the potatoes used for a large potato salad for a memorable Sunday tea!
Gardening has such a positive impact on the people we support, the environment and from a sustainability aspect too. We’re already looking forward to seeing this year’s entries!