Growing for gold with community food competition (From Surrey Comet)

Growing for gold with community food competition

1:20pm Sunday 12th February 2012 in Wandsworth

Gardeners with Capital Growth staff at a community growing space in the Old Rectory, Carshalton

Green-fingered Londoners are being invited to get their hands on an Olympic-inspired cash giveaway by growing their own food.

The Grow for Gold competition is offering gardeners the chance to win up to £1500 through starting their own community food growing space.

The Capital Growth scheme, organised by Mayor of London Boris Johnson, aims to create 2,012 growing spaces in London by the end of 2012 - and has seen thousands of pounds of grants already handed out to groups across London to set up their projects.

A spokeswoman for the scheme said by growing food, people had greened and improved neighbourhoods and brought people in estates, schools and local communities together.

The Grow for Gold competition will be judged later this year, with prizes awarded to the best gardens in the Capital Growth scheme.

To inspire people to get their hands dirty, it is offering £100, £200, £400, £800 and £1500 prizes.

Winners will be chosen across five different categories, community engagement, enterprise, education, supporting wildlife and overall winner for most inspiring garden.

The Mayor, Boris Johnson, said: "This competition is the perfect opportunity to discover green fingers and, with the support of our Capital Growth gurus, your borough can produce its own medal-winning fresh fruit and veg as the starting pistol is fired on this summer's Games.’

Those who register their growing space before Friday, February 17, not only stand a chance of winning one of these cash incentives, but could be one of 100 Grow for Gold groups to receive training, vouchers and other support.

Grow for Gold is open to anyone who wants to set up a new food growing project. Capital Growth is funded by the Mayor of London and by the Local Food programme, a £57.5 million funding programme supported by the Big Lottery Fund.

The programme was awarded a Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) Commendation in 2010 for its success in getting communities growing. For more information go to www.capitalgrowth.org.