Family Grow Allotment Project

In 2011 the Health and Wellbeing team secured an amount of funding from Staffordshire County Council to run a Family Grow Allotment scheme to support and mentor families to grow their own produce, maintain their plots and aid their crops to flourish.

Families are provided with all the tools they need as well as their own allotment plot and are mentored monthly through a growing season by a trustee from the allotment site. The Health services also provide healthy eating advice and recipes to use the produce when it has grown.

As well as helping the families to become more active- as they all work together on the allotments, it also encourages a sense of mental health and well being as families worked outdoors and felt more connected to nature and their surroundings.

As a part of the Family Grow project a programme of free ‘green’ activities are also organised to engage with the local community on the allotment site.

The activities included:

• Willow Working-  making their own sculptures out of sustainable materials
• Community Bat walk
• Community fun day – bird displays, bouncy castles
• Wildplay mornings
• Den building – kids dens built from natural sources
• Lantern building
• Pumpkin carving

Family Grow Allotment Competition

The Family Grow Allotment scheme is open again for 2012. You can enter by downloading the online application form (pdf 131kb), filling it out and emailing it back to aknight@staffordbc.gov.uk. The form is also available in the Civic Centre, or you can call 01785 619387 for more information.

The application deadline is Friday 24 February at 5.00pm.

The four who provide the best reason for wanting to have an allotment will be selected by a panel of judges. The winners get a plot for the 2012-growing season, plants, seeds and equipment, and will be supported by an expert to make sure their garden grows.

Allotment Open Day

There is a special information day on Saturday 18 February that takes place at the Community Building on the allotment site - between the town's Prospect Road and Corporation Street between 10.00am - 1.00pm, where you can find out more information and look around the allotment site.

If you'd like more information on the open day or the allotment scheme you can contact Amanda Knight, at aknight@staffordbc.gov.uk or on 01785 619555.