Burnfoot community garden sees demand for home grown produce soar amid cost of living crisis

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A community garden in the Borders is helping local people access affordable home-grown produce.

Burnfoot Community Hub in Hawick, has a large garden where volunteers grow fruit and vegetables including potatoes, pumpkins, tomatoes and onions all year round.

Once ready, the produce goes into making cheap warm meals in hub's cafe, where meals are given to families for free as part of their Food Share initiative.

The aim is to provide people with healthy food amid the cost of living crisis.

"If you have got a couple of kids at home, your priority is going to be feeding them" said Joyce Short, Community Engagement Supervisor at the Hub.

"If we can help people be able to do that, then that's a huge benefit to the community.

"It makes a real difference to how healthy they are eating, but also the costs...the change to the cost of their living and what money that they have left in the pocket at the end of the week."

Excess fruit and vegetables not served in the cafe are given out to the community through a Food Share scheme.

The Burnfoot Community Hub is open three days a week. Anyone who is struggling to make ends meet can collect a bag of fresh food from the garden, as well as take home any items donated from supermarkets.

Volunteer Julia Parks believes this project has several important benefits to the wider community.

She said: "Having a healthy diet is good for mental health and just general wellbeing.

"I think the fact that the food's grown locally and then it's being shared locally, it's not being grown somewhere that you don't know about or can't see... people can actually come to the garden and see where it's being grown."

Bosses at the hub say as inflation rises, its role of providing healthy, affordable meals and ingredients will only become more important.

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