Horsemanship for Health

We started a community garden on a long strip of land at our horse premises. We began by using up a huge pile of rotted horse manure to grow vegetables, herbs and flowers to feed our team of volunteers and guests on our NHS courses.

Two year funding from the National Lottery Awards for All and Teignbridge Lottery for Communities, helped us set up a Polytunnel where tomatoes, chilli and cucumbers are now flourishing. We created a series of vegetable beds to grow kale, rainbow chard, sweet corn red cabbage, runner beans, courgette, squash, red potatoes, sweet peas, rhubarb and soft fruits.

We worked closely with our local social prescribing team and one person who was referred happened to be a gifted gardener and we invited her to join our team. Becci’s talents and knowledge helped to start a second more ambitious community garden with substantially more growing space than our first.

Our garden has become a place of sanctuary and solace for our team of nine who all have lived experience of mental health distress and suicidal despair. We work together and we support each other. People work at their own pace and take time to observe the birds and wildlife in our beautiful South Devon field. We garden to connect with the land, with the plants and with each other. Like the plants we care for, we are in the simple act of gardening growing towards the light.

Here are some comments from participants in their own words:

I’ve felt generosity here.

No matter how I am feeling, as soon as I hear everyone’s laughter, I feel lighter in myself.

Everyone goes off when we have our little breaks, and everyone talks to everyone else, and the openness and honesty just carries on.

I feel a lot, lot better than what I did when I arrived this morning, and it’s thanks to everybody here, the openness and the acceptance of who you are, not what you should be. And I think that’s very special.

Strong sense I get of acceptance from this group. You just come here, you haven’t got to perform.

I can just be me. It’s so nice because I find it quite draining sometimes, trying to be someone I’m not, putting that smile on, but I put a real smile on here.

I felt a little bit sad this morning, and now I feel really like at peace.