A team from Jaguar Land Rover swapped desks and offices for spades and sunshine when they volunteered at Crow Recycling.

The group from the Vehicle Efficiency Group at the luxury car giant’s Gaydon base spent a day in Crow Recycling’s garden. They planted fruit trees, built compost bins, laid a woodchip surface between raised beds and made improvements to access.

The garden, currently being funded by the National Lottery, is where Crow’s service users, mainly adults with learning difficulties, learn to grow food. This year’s harvest included cucumbers, courgettes and tomatoes. The project has seen Crow’s service users getting out in the sunshine and eating the vegetables they have grown.

The newly planted fruit trees will see apples, pears and plums added to the list. The apple tree is a Wyken Pippin, a traditional Coventry variety named after the Wyken area of the city.

Pete Taylor, engineering manager at JLR said: “The sun is shining – we thought it was going to be rainy. This has been good hard work and we feel we are really achieving something.”

Crow Recycling office manager Lucy Lynch said: “It was brilliant to have the help. The team worked really hard and we’re really grateful they chose us for their team volunteering event. The building is called Orchard House but until now there was no orchard. Jaguar Land Rover along with with our grant from the National Lottery and Team SpringBoard CIC’s horticultural know how have helped us put that right. And we have a woodchip surface between the beds, a step where one was needed, compost bins and the beginnings of better access.”

The gardening project is a partnership with community gardening organisation Team SpringBoard CIC. Team Springboard’s horticultural manager Esther oversaw the Jaguar Land Rover volunteers.

Esther said: “Despite the bitter cold and threat of rain his incredible Jaguar group of only 10 people worked like 20 people and got so much hard work done. It’s unbelievable and even the sun came out to see!”