If you want to discuss options for raised bed design, installation and support please get in touch via our Contact page – we can provide a bespoke, one-off bed for a quiet corner of your garden, or 200 at a time for a new housing development.

Growing Spaces is our flagship, award winning community project – Growing Spaces won  the National Housing Federation’s What We Are Proud Of 2010 award for the south east. Growing Spaces is delivered by us in partnership with Medina Housing Association – it’s a raised bed project that aims to give people everything they need to start to grow their own fruit and vegetables. Click here for the Growing Spaces page on this website or here for the Growing Spaces project website.

• Conversion of an underused and unwelcoming grassy space and portion of car park into a thriving, engaging and beautiful raised bed garden and recreational area;
• Delivery of informal, hands-on training sessions for residents throughout 2011-2012 – covering planning, design, construction, planting, plant care, harvesting, preserving and cooking produce, composting and recycling.

As well as the benefits to the residents associated with learning new skills there are many other potential positive aspects to the project. Residents should find that their mental health will improve and they will also be encouraged to live more healthily via:

• Growing their own food;
• Meeting new people, making friends and developing new hobbies;
• Increased outdoor exercise;
• Feeding themselves and their families more cheaply, with fresh produce;
• Living a more natural, proactive life;
• Becoming more environmentally friendly by creating new, garden based habitats and developing a low carbon lifestyle by consuming local produce;
• Increasing opportunities to become involved in the local community.

Sessions will be informal, innovative and very much focused on a hands-on, non-threatening approach to the learning. Mark Meredith, Senior Community Regeneration Officer at Southern Housing Group said ‘This is a very exciting project and we’re looking forward to making a difference to the residents and staff at Yarborough House as well as working with Growing Ideas again.’

As well as installing raised beds as part of our award winning Growing Spaces project we’re taking an increasing number of orders for other public sector organisations and private sector clients too. If you want to discuss options for raised bed design, installation and support please get in touch via our Contact page – we can provide a bespoke, one-off bed for a quiet corner of your garden, or 200 at a time for a new housing development.

Erica Myers, NHS Healthy Weight Advisor and programme lead, said “a healthy lifestyle isn’t all about food; it includes wellbeing, confidence, self esteem and families working together. We had a great time building shelters, cooking soup and making fires! It was a great celebration to the end of the programme.”

• Rockets and Rocket Cars
• Solar Power
• Wind Energy
• Survival

2011 is the second year running that we will have provided Ryde Summer Fun activities for Barnardo’s and we’re looking forward to another successful summer.

• The ever-popular Shelter building (as part of our Survival package)
• Fire-lighting – another essential element of the Survival activities – we have to run this twice every day as it’s so popular
• Arts and Crafts activities on the stage run all day
• Bug Hunts and Minibeast Safari
• Really Wild Dance sessions for the under-10s (and their parents)

The Growing Ideas team will be there every Friday in August 2011 – hopefully, we’ll see you there.

Some of the Really Wild Friday Activities

If your school is coming to the Isle of Wight on a school trip and you want to organise some fantastic activities for your children and staff, get in touch with us via the Contact page.

The very successful project involved the Growing Ideas working with the Reception classes to develop a brand new growing and learning area and with the Year 1 classes to develop their Explorers theme.

That’s going to bring the running total for this year to nearly 180 beds and will mean that we will have given some 430 island households the chance to change their lives via our delivery of Growing Spaces, our flagship, award winning community project – Growing Spaces won  the National Housing Federation’s What We Are Proud Of 2010 award for the south east. Growing Spaces is delivered by us in partnership with Medina Housing Association – it’s a raised bed project that aims to give people everything they need to start to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

Every participant receives:

• An individually tailored, purpose-built raised bed which is filled with a locally sourced soil and compost mix.
• Seeds and plants along with all the information and advice you need to look after them.
• A regular training programme – created and delivered by Growing Ideas – including drop in cooking, advice and give-away sessions.
• Access to the project website, designed and maintained by Growing Ideas: Growing Spaces.
• The chance to join the island community growing together and to share their experiences with others.

It’s free to join and is open to everybody so join us, save money, live more healthily and reduce your family’s carbon footprint too – go to Growing Spaces for more information.