Keighley Salvation Army community garden (West Yorkshire, UK)

A yard behind the Salvation Army church hall and community centre in Keighley, West Yorkshire, turned into a productive garden over about a year by a volunteer, Matthew. Potatoes grow in an old baby bath and chillies in a wellington boot; carrots, peas, strawberries, herbs and pumpkins fill the rest. The produce supplies the Salvation Army food bank, meals for homeless people, the Victory Programme budgeting-and-cookery class and the centre's café. Matthew came to the charity after rehab, joined the cookery class, and was asked to take on the garden while volunteering at the food bank, with no prior gardening experience.

Started single-handedly by Matthew, a 39-year-old volunteer in recovery from alcohol addiction, and now opening out to participants of the Salvation Army's Victory Programme budgeting-and-cookery class and to food bank users and volunteers. Low-cost methods — old baby baths and wellington boots repurposed as planters — keep it open to people with no gardening experience.

Run as part of the Salvation Army's local corps activity. The harvest goes into the cookery class, food bank parcels, meals for homeless people and the on-site café, offsetting what the centre would otherwise have to buy in.

A charity that already had the outlets for food aid — a food bank, meals for homeless people, a cookery class and a café — added a garden upstream of them, so there is no surplus or route-to-market problem. At the same time the garden became a place and a role for someone in recovery from addiction ("I can honestly say this has been lifesaving for me... I've been clean for a year now"), so welfare and a food loop overlap on one site. The garden is being entered in the Best Yard category of the local Keighley in Bloom competition.

Within the grounds of the Salvation Army's own church hall and community centre.

Web articles and features that cover this case.

• ArticleUK: Volunteer turns yard into prize-winning garden — City Farmer News（2026年8月14日） ↗cityfarmer.info

This entry is compiled from the public sources, official sites and research below.

• OfficialVolunteer plants new seeds at Keighley church with yard transformation — The Salvation Army UK（2026年6月4日） ↗salvationarmy.org.uk