A VEGETABLE and herb garden has been created for residents on a piece of land next to a Bewdley church.

Fresh lettuce, spinach, runner beans and herbs such as mint, thyme and sage are available for people to help themselves to on the land opposite St Anne’s Church, in Load Street.

The colourful garden, which has also been spruced up with flowers, was planted by members of the church in May as an act of kindness.

Margaret Ashmore, former church warden, said residents had been enjoying picking the vegetables and herbs.

“People have been helping themselves,” she explained.

“It’s been very positively received. People like it when we say ‘come and help yourselves’.”

She added: “It’s all the idea of the church rector Keith James who challenged us to do fun, colourful and generous things as an act of kindness.

“We all had various ideas about different things and a couple of us thought that the scrappy piece of land needed something doing with it.

“We turned it into a veg garden so everybody could go and help themselves to the veg.”

She added people could also plant anything spare they had in their own garden or help out with the weeding.

The idea is similar to guerrilla gardening, which is gardening on abandoned or neglected land that people do not have legal right to use.