HOMELESS and vulnerable people's lives are turning a new leaf - thanks to a bulging vegetable patch.

To celebrate the turn of the Millennium, The Steppin' Stone Centre, a drop-in centre in Magdalen Road, Oxford, bought a patch of land spanning 250 square metres to experiment with.

Staff hoped that they might be able to subsidise some of the 50 to 60 meals they serve a day with a little of their own home grown produce.

Eight years on, the plot - tended by charity users and volunteers - is ten times its original size, or as big as two football pitches, so the charity gets more than half of the food it serves from the allotment.

But a decent meal is just one of the many benefits the patch has to offer users of the Steppin' Stone Centre.

Stephen Hatch, 56, has been a member, the term the charity uses for regular users of the centre, for six years. He is one of three members to gain a qualification in Vegetable Cultivation since working on the allotment.

Mr Hatch said: "I have been working on the patch for almost five years and I love it. I enjoy the physical side of it and I also find the process very relaxing.

"I sometimes experience quite a lot of anxiety, so working on the plot is like therapy for me.

"I think that schools should offer the vegetable cultivation course to kids. It would give them a sense of respect.

"The satisfaction of seeing something that I have planted grow and then to eat it is just amazing. I am very proud to be involved."

Nigel Northcott, the manager of the Steppin' Stone gardening project, believes the organic plot saves them thousands of pounds.

He said: "At the moment we have organic spinach, parsnips, and rhubarb and the other day we collected a tray of about three or four kilogrammes of beans.

"It is this sort of variety of food that we would not be able to afford to buy if we didn't grow it ourselves.

"We will literally cook and eat the vegetables and fruit within a couple of hours of picking them fresh from the ground - you just can't buy that sort of quality. It must save us thousands of pounds."

Mr Northcott believes the work can also be life-changing for their members.

He said: "Many of our members come from difficult backgrounds and have had a very rough time but coming down and helping on the patch gives them a sense of fellowship, purpose and pride."