A Newham gardening group has come out top in a London food gardens competition.

Abbey Gardens in Newham has been crowned most inspiring community food garden of London beating competition from a 1900 plus strong network of similar spaces across London.

Capital Growth, that runs the network of community food gardens, is now offering grants to new spaces.

The Grow for Gold competition, run by the Capital Growth network during 2012, has announced the winners of five different categories celebrating the breadth of community food growing spaces across London.

Grow for Gold judge, Fred Foot, from Bulldog Tools, said: “We were blown away by the quality of the entries. It was really hard to choose the winners, when all the spaces and the groups behind them have made such an impact. It was like splitting hairs to choose, but that’s what we had to do.”

Paola Guzman, from Capital Growth, said: “Over the last four years of running Capital Growth, there have been so many great stories behind the thousands of new community food gardens that have been set up. This competition was our way of congratulating those groups who have made a real difference, be it with the people they have brought together, the difference they’ve made to their local environment, or the amount they have grown.”

Abbey Gardens won the first prize in the Inspriring food garden category in the Grown for Gold competition which was launched by Lord Seb Coe and London Mayor Boris Johnson in February 2012. They have won �200 worth of Bulldog tools, a �250 voucher for the Organic Gardening catalogue and a �250 cooking course at the Cookery School.