Allotments and Mental Health

For the past year students from the School of Supported Learning at North West Kent College have been cultivating an allotment garden at the Dartford Road site in Devonshire Avenue, West Dartford, in the company of two teachers with professional qualifications in special needs education - and a rudimentary knowledge of gardening. Unlike many horticultural therapy projects, which are defined by medical expertise to fit the needs of users, ours has arisen partly by accident, and partly to serve the needs of users and of the broader community which makes use of the allotment site. This community happens to include a smattering of present or former psychiatric nurses, which is helpful. It also includes a large number of people who come to the allotments for peace, solitude, something meaningful to do, and somewhere to keep body and soul together. Some of our other plotholders may have diagnosed mental health problems (the Association has no way of knowing this, and no right to know), some may prefer to treat themselves, and some stay healthy through the exercise and congenial company which abounds on the allotment site. In short, it is a community with a profound interest in mental health, whether it recognises it as such or not, and within which the students on the project, who are all adults, have a right and the ability to feel at home.

The project began by accident - a casual conversation between one of our plotholders and a teacher at the college. Neither the allotment association nor the college had any experience in horticultural therapy practiced on allotments, but as an experiment, a small plot was loaned to the college with the Association's blessing, and the first six students - a mixed group with learning difficulties and mental health problems - started to learn vegetable growing more or less by trial and error during their weekly visits to the site. There were many errors to begin with: for example, it is good to keep a plot well hoed, but best to do this before you plant the seeds! Nevertheless the pleasure which the students derived from this activity was obvious from the infectious laughter emanating from their corner of the site. It seemed as if the experiment was a success, and one of the students found his vocation: he has since enrolled for a professional qualification in horticulture.

It was obvious, however, that we had a lot to learn. For example, before the project began all of the plotholders in the nearby area were told what was going to happen. Several were overtly supportive, and nobody voiced objections. But we soon ran into difficulties. One of the students was seen to behave in what was (quite mistakenly) taken to be a violent and uncontrolled manner, an event which exposed some underlying anxieties about welcoming the students onto the site. Fortunately, over six years of self-management the Association has had much experience of dealing with disputes and grievances based on uncertain facts, and the matter was resolved swiftly and thoroughly without causing undue embarrassment either to the students, or to the college, or to the other plotholders on the site - and there has been no repetition.

To proceed further with the project, however, we were going to need better infrastructure - meaning a plot that would be a permanent home for the project with its own shed and tools, and access to a little more professional support. Fortunately, the Association is a member of the QED Allotments Group, part of Dartford's Local Agenda 21 initiative, and this has proved of great value. A shed was donated by a local resident - thanks to some quick thinking on the part of one of our plotholders, who heard it was due for demolition - and relocated to the site by the borough's refuse contractors on instructions from the Environmental Services Department. A generous grant to buy tools was obtained from the local branch of B&Q through that company's "Quest" scheme, and handed over with due ceremony by the mayor. Wooden pallets to build a compost bin and other facilities were obtained from a local building contractor. As for professional assistance, this is now available to us through the organisation "Horticultural Therapy", which the Association has joined. Horticultural Therapy has just inaugurated a support network for London and the South East, and the two teachers from North West Kent College attended the launch meeting - where our project attracted considerable interest, not least because it has such a strong community-based element. With the approach of Spring, we are ready to commence the second growing season, with one success already: one of the students has obtained a plot of his own in his local village, so he can carry on gardening whenever he likes.

We still have many problems to overcome. The biggest is the mismatch between the growing season - and the incessant demands of the allotment garden for attention - and the college timetable, which make it difficult to sustain proper cultivation throughout the year, and disrupts the students' enjoyment of the plot. We need to find some way around this, in cooperation with other support services. But we are also ambitious: through the QED Allotments Group a second project may soon be starting up at Tredegar Allotments, in cooperation with a local rehabilitation centre for people with mental health problems, and the QED Health Group is working on a third project, serving the needs of Asian women.

It is clear from our own experience and those of other projects around the country that allotments can be very useful in helping people to overcome their mental health problems. I did say at the outset however, that our project exists to serve the needs of users and of the broader community on the allotment site. In truth, the allotment community needs people with mental health problems - along with other groups who can benefit from cultivating a little patch of the earth's surface, to help us fight our corner. Allotments have their own health problems: their numbers have diminished rapidly in recent years. Now, through initiatives like Local Agenda 21, and in partnership with local authorities, plotholders are beginning to address the health problems of allotment sites, and finding innovative ways of enhancing both the popular image and the genuine benefits of allotment gardening. With the support of QED, the Borough Council, and especially of our MP, whose Early Day Motion on Allotment Gardening has brought our efforts to national attention, we are aiming towards a definition of best practice in creating allotments where people with mental health problems find help and help themselves - and are sincerely valued for the contribution they make to the health and vitality of the gardening community as a whole. Our goal is simply this: to ensure that allotments are for everyone.

I would like to conclude by telling you about a rewarding experience of my own with this project. One afternoon I was quietly digging my much neglected plot when one of the students, a young man who is usually deeply withdrawn and prefers to work on his own, wandered over uninvited, and we started talking about worms and fishing, there being plenty of worms lying around at the time. Slacking off and enjoying a little idle conversation. Just like all plotholders do - most of the time. And that's the point. He had withdrawn all right, effortlessly, into the heart of allotment gardening - which is a very nice place to be.