Community spirit blossoms in the tough end of Kennington

When I visited last week, Daniel was watering the raised beds on each side of the path across the fenced-in garden. "I've made friends here," he says, tipping the bright red watering can over a bag of potatoes. The beds are mainly shared between two people. Daniel has a plot ( about 4ft by 2ft 6in) to himself, although he gives away all his vegetables to other members of the community garden: his beetroot, beans, squash and artichokes were bursting out of the soil. The garden is one of the largest community veg projects I've visited. Surrounded by blue railings, there are lawns, trees, a wide path running diagonally from corner to corner, raised beds, water butts, compost heaps and cheery beds of sunflowers which the kids grew as part of a summer holiday competition.

"We have all ages and many nationalities here," says Nicola Desmond, one of the three founders of the project. "Along with Daniel from Romania, we have people from China, Australia, Poland, Spain, Jamaica, Africa and Portugal. It's made a lot of difference to my life and, I think to other people's. I knew no one when I came — it's very easy to be lonely in a place like this: you just go to work and scurry back to your flat, avoiding contact with other residents."

Nicola, who works at the local Salvation Army and is a single mum to six-year-old Kyam, has lived on the estate for almost three years. Cottington Estate is a TMC, or tenant management co-operative, and regular meetings are held between the tenants to decide how to manage the estate and spend the funds from the council.

When Nicola first suggested taking over the garden, which was extremely down-at-heel, the management committee were less than enthusiastic. They thought it would be a one-hit wonder, which the gardeners would quickly lose interest in. But when two other women volunteered to help, the TMC agreed to let them have a try — but didn't volunteer any money.

Nicola is a genius at working the grants system: after an initial award from Capital Growth, she also secured funding from the Co-op and the Lottery and support in kind from Garden Organic (which runs free gardening master classes) and Kingston University which uses the space to test out students' garden designs.

This summer Nicola entered a planted-up wheelbarrow in the Brockwell Show (after persuading a friend with a van to transport it) and won second prize. The £75 is going towards a barbecue, which she is planning to build this winter, along with a pond and wildlife area, a willow den, a hobbit hole, and a tree house.

Tenants are encouraged to use the garden for family parties such as christenings and even those who aren't actual gardeners have become protective about the space, shouting out of the windows at night if they see anyone trying to climb the railings to smash things up "although that does happen, unfortunately," says Nicola. "This summer some teenagers set fire to a pile of wood and we often find bottles, needles and trash that has been thrown over the fence."

"This is a rough estate," she adds, "there are a lot of drugs about and the police have found guns. Before we started the garden people didn't go out much and they certainly didn't let their kids out. But it is safe in our garden and on weekends we have loads of children running around, helping with the gardening, making friends and playing."

Daniel finishes up his watering. After his weeks on the street he found a place in a hostel which he hated because of the preponderance of drink and drugs. Today he pays £40 a week for a room-share, a situation he doesn't like either. The garden, he says, is the nicest place he knows in London.

The TMC is thrilled with the result and are talking to other estates about following their example: for zero investment they now have a community garden between the tower blocks, the crime rate is down, the tenants help each other out and the place feels much more upbeat and optimistic.

Capital Growth is running an Edible Estates competition to find the best community food growing projects on London's housing estates. The deadline to register is October 1. For more details visitcapitalgrowth.org/edibleestates
The Capital Growth Open Gardens Day on September 25 is a great opportunity to visit your local community food-growing space.

Find out what's going on there, how you can pitch in and enjoy a day of activities at: capitalgrowth.org/training/opengardens