It is now about four years since work on the Healthy Roots site started - although it seems like longer! Looking back, the progress we have made has been amazing, considering that so much of the work has been done by volunteers. The project was initially developed by a partnership including the Community Placement Team (disability), Mental Health Aberdeen, the Aberdeen Allotments and Gardens Society, Aberdeen Friends of the Earth and Middlefield-based groups such as the Residents’ Action Group, Parish Church and Community Project. It is now run by Healthy Roots Ltd, a company with charitable status, which was set up specifically to run the project.

Before the start of the project, various events were held to get ideas from local residents. An Open Day in the spring of 2002 attracted over 300 enthusiastic local people. We drew up a business plan, signed a lease and started to raise funds. By the time we got permission to start work on the site itself it was April 2003.

The first few months were taken up trying to make the site safe, as it was covered with old allotment fences made out of barbed wire, corrugated iron and goodness knows what else. Local volunteers, Aberdeen Friends of the Earth (AFoE) and the accounting firm KPMG all pitched in to clear the site. Several loads of corrugated iron went for recycling at Panda Rosa metals, making a grand total of £10 for the project. Shanks Waste kindly lent skips to take away much of the rest. By the time winter set in, the fences were gone, a few key areas had been cleared of willowherb and a start had been made on the path network. The basic outline of the gardens was beginning to emerge.

With a grant from the Aberdeen Countryside Project, work over the winter and early spring of 2004 focussed on access and conservation. We put up fences, laid woodchip on the paths, dug ponds and planted hedges, trees and flower beds. A hedge maze was put in near the top of the site, although it will be a while before anyone is able to get lost in it. Much of the work in this phase was done by conservation volunteer groups such as ACP, British Trust for Conservation Volunteers (BTCV), AFoE and Mental Health Aberdeen's environmental hit squad, Green Tracks. The accounting firm Ernst & Young has also had a couple of volunteer days (surprisingly helpful people, accountants!).

With the arrival of spring, work got going on the veg-growing part of the site, the first bit to be cleared of the willowherb. Aberdeen City Council's Community Placement Team took this part on, helped by a grant from SCVO. The plot was mostly planted with potatoes as a clearing crop. CPT volunteers also put in paths and compost bins. We have since scaled back the veg growing as this activity is perhaps better suited to more-protected allotments, but we do still have a demonstration area that can be used by schools and the orchard and soft fruits are going strong.

The big project over the summer of 2004 was the parent-and-toddler play park. The Middlefield Community Project's Active Living Group drew up the layout. They also designed and painted a mural for the perimeter fence, helped by the Whitespace arts project. The central element of the design, a climbing frame, was generously paid for by ExxonMobil and has been well played on ever since. The rest of the design was built by volunteers over the summer.

In the autumn the Middlefield Youth Flat built a barbecue (yes, we know that's not exactly the barbecue season, but this is a long-term project). Winter is the time of year when you can step back from the maintenance and do more structural work, so during the winter of 04/05 we improved the paths and planted up a lot more flower beds. The Aberdeen Countryside Project did some spectacular dry stane dyking to make a raised bed near the entrance. Near the top of the site, Green Tracks started work on a play park for the older kids: an adventure playground with a pole walk, rope bridge and climbing wall.

Over the summer of 2005, as well as more construction projects, such as a Loch Ness Monster in the play park (see pictures!), we introduced a popular summer playscheme.

In 2006 and 2007, Healthy Roots itself suffered something of a funding crisis, but maintenance and development on the site continued thanks to Green Tracks, who were given a grant by local funding body Aberdeen Forward to work on the site. Work funded by Aberdeen Forward included an excellent new all-access path, lots of new planting, new benches and the installation of a second-hand shipping container that now functions as storage for materials and as a very handy bothy for volunteers caught in the rain.

Many thanks to all our volunteers, supporters and funders who have made Healthy Roots possible.