You know what they say: “From small seeds, great pak choi grows”. This month marks ten years since Christine, Sarah and I set up MCG. For me it has been an astonishingly rewarding decade. I could never have imagined the thrill of seeing things go well or the pride that comes from the achievements of all the members of the team.

There have been highlights and low points of course, but we are very proud of the team we’ve built and the personality the business has developed.

Over the years MCG has given work experience and employment to more than 100 people and we hope that they all took something positive away from their time here. Certainly their feedback has been positive and we try to keep in touch with as many of them as we can – especially now Twitter means we can keep abreast of their news so easily.

So what are we doing to celebrate? We wanted to mark our decade in MCG style and do things that other people could join in with. We’ve set ourselves ten separate themed challenges and we’ll be starting one each month. In March we launched the anniversary booklist. April’s challenge has a Grow Your Own theme with a produce show at the end of July to eat or admire the results. Later in the year we will be taking part in physical challenges, cooking each other’s favourite dishes, there will be a wardrobe challenge and a how much fun can you have with a tenner event.

There has been some confusion amongst the team, so here are the rules for April: no ifs, no buts and NO TADPOLES.

• You must grow your produce from seed or a cutting
• You must nurture it yourself
• There should be photos to show you grew it
• It doesn’t have to be edible
• The produce will be judged on Friday 29 July
• Anyone can join in