A new "kitchen garden" contest is to be launched in Sandwell in a bid to provide competition for the increasing range of people who grow a huge variety of plants from around the world to provide food for the table.

The idea is to recognise the range of ages and nationalities and the range of crops from around the world now being grown on plots - and to the efforts of people who grow just for the kitchen.

It is a move to give anyone the chance to get involved in competitive gardening which has become more popular in recent years. It will also give more chance to people who do not grow the big exhibition crops - leeks, onions and carrots - to the highest standards.

At the moment people entering the local councils and the Black Country Inter-Towns Allotments Competitions have to grow a list of specific crops to click up the points to get a big score.

This has lead to a hard core group of superb growers, which produce huge brilliantly-presented crops on an allotment which leaves little place for the "bread and butter gardener".

But now members of Sandwell Allotment Council and Barbara Carroll, the council's  allotments offcer, are aiming to organise a show anyone can enter, irrespective of age, fitness or nationality.

Councillor Linda Horton, cabinet member for culture and leisure said: "This is a great idea and we look forward to working with the Allotment Council to put on this special competition. "We are proud of the standards our gardeners achieve and this new competition fits in well with the increase in allotments activity in the borough."

It will mean that the many people from around the world who now grow more exotic plants on the plots can enter and score heavily on a much more open scoring system.

"Allotments are changing, the people who cultivate them are now a mix of old and young from all nationalities and the crops that they grow are diverse," said Barbara. "Those who enter the new competition would be given a blank score sheet thus opening it up to everyone whatever they grow, and remembering at the same time that marks would still be awarded for cleanliness and crop rotation," she said.

To launch the idea an evening with a qualified judge,  giving an illustrated talk entitled "Gardening for the Kitchen Table " will be held in the Spring when allotment gardeners in Sandwell will be invited. Detail to be arranged.

For More information, please contact Barbara Caroll on 0121 569 3438.