Salad Days

There are going to be a lot of green fingers at Shinewell Gardens in Millbrook – residents have been learning to grow their own veg at home.

Staff from Radian’s Housing, Community Involvement and Grounds Maintenance team joined local Police to put on the event for residents, who were shown how to plant their choice of salad plants into grow bags or planters so they could take them home. Volunteers from a local church also gave out free seeds and grow bags, and helped tidy up litter from the area.

Community Project Worker Helen Humphries led the event, and said “this was a fantastic opportunity for residents to get involved and find out how to grow their own. We had a great turn out on the day and would like to thank all those who took part and made it a huge success.”

Helen, along with Neighbourhood Officer Louise Corbin, has also been busy organising repairs at Shinewell, as part of a scheme to make our community, homes and relationships with our residents better. Radian Services tradesmen Mark Stubbs and Alastair Coombes did a total of 53 repairs, and another 50 repair requests were made during the course of just one very busy day. Our residents said they were “very happy” with the work and highly impressed with the cheerful attitude and high standards of the tradesmen.

As well as the repair programme, and learning about growing their own fruit and veg, residents met with staff from Millbrook’s Safer Neighbourhoods Team who gave them advice about how to look after their homes and belongings and gave out special pens to mark personal items. It’s a shame that the pens could not keep the newly planted lettuces and radishes safe, as they were sadly eaten by slugs – the gardener’s worst enemy.

It’s now been almost two months since our residents took to planting their own fruit and veg, and aside from the slug attack, several have had great success growing tomato plants which they have re-potted and cared for – one resident has their tomato plant on show for everybody to admire in a pretty window box outside their top floor flat!