The Big Sow

The seeds were distributed by St Peter's church and were given to houses, flats, schools and nurseries in the parish with the idea of creating a community wide suburban farm network.

The idea was dreamed up by airline pilot Jason Newton as he flew over Bexhill on the way to Gatwick Airport.

He says he was struck by the amount of green space in the town centre and felt the resource could be used in a more positive way - to grow food.

Jason said: "The idea is really that if you loook down from above, as I happened to be doing, you see interspersed in all the grey there is lots of green still. It is just sharing it, and combining to produce a community farm...that is what we are doing, we are farming it."

Following a blessing of the Big Sow by Reverend Daniel Smith, Jason and other helpers pushed wheelbarrows filled with packets of seeds around the streets, knocking on doors and surprising residents with their unusual gift.

Jason commented: "Every home is getting an envelope with one of four varieties of seeds -carrots, beetroot, chard or runner beans. The response has been really good so far...We are disturbing peoples' Saturday morning which is not always a popular thing to do, but they are saying - what a great idea!

There were 2,300 packets of seeds given out in the Big Sow, each filled with seeds and instructions on how to to grow them, from crumbling up the soil to break it up, to putting the seeds in and covering with soil or compost, to protecting and nurturing the plant all the way to the plate, with quick ideas on how to cook or eat the grown vegetable.

Jason added: "It has been very labour intensive - we have had a dedicated team of volunteers. It has been great because a lot of work has been done in the church, we have been asking people to form a production line getting the envelopes ready. It is people power - it's great."

There is also a community vegetable garden at 141 Dorset Road, which is open from 10am until noon every Saturday. Everyone is welcome to come along to the garden to help, enjoy, or just meet others. For more information call Jason on 01424 210651 or Jim Truscott on 01424 216263.