‘Garden as though you will live forever.’*
I love the thought of gardening as an investment for generations, a legacy for the future. I often look at the apple trees in the middle of our lawn and wonder who planted them, when, and who has eaten fruit from them over the years that they have faithfully yielded their harvest. We believe that they pre-date our Victorian house when this whole area of West London was originally a large market garden to supply Convent Garden Fruit & Vegetable Market. Cases of produce would have been taken daily, 9 miles east, by horse and cart and I have visions of an Oliver-style ‘Consider Yourself’ market scene allowing Londoners to eat fresh fruit every day. When you consider how a plant begins from a single seed and can feed us for generations, it’s pretty amazing. So what about gardening when you haven’t got the guarantee that your trees can lay down deep roots? I was delighted to discover, at one of our recent chicken keeping courses, that a couple of our guests worked at the Kings Cross Skip Garden and were wanting to ensure that they were caring for their urban hens in the best possible way. I have been interested in the Skip Garden for quite a while and have known one of its original team members, Paul Richens, as a friend and neighbour for many years, I even trained as a Compost Champion under his tuition back in 2012. The Skip Garden is just one of the environmental projects that is part of the huge development behind Kings Cross station, utilising, albeit temporary, redundant space to produce organic food and educate adults and children alike on the benefits of urban food production. As most of the gardens are contained within disused builder’s skips, when the developers need to use the land, the skips can be moved to the next available space. I was keen to explore the Skip Garden for myself and jumped at the invitation to visit, stay for lunch, and train some additional team members to care for their chickens.
The site is truly breathtaking, with inspirational design at every turn. The balcony constructed with sandbags, the wood-fired pizza oven, bespoke hen house, light filled classroom, sheltered outdoor dining, and the most amazing glass house built from reclaimed vintage windows. It’s well worth a visit, check out their opening times here, and if the weather is nice you may even fancy a swim in the next door Pond Club!
Coming up at the Corner…
Our ‘Micro Bakery’ continues this week. Bread, buns, cakes & treats will be baked throughout the day, put your orders in early, and can be collected along with honey and preserves between 5-7pm. For more details see our Facebook Group.
For sausages without the chemicals, we are running a course for you to make your own bangers on Thursday 5th November and if you fancy brushing up on your own baking skills, we have our monthly Bread: Sweet & Savoury on Thursday 17th November.
Other News:
- We visited the fantastic coffee shop, Pritchard and Ure, in Campden Garden Centre and are planning some joint events
- Our bread making class with Edible Ealing trained a group of nine to make Cinnamon Swirls
- It’s the National Honey Show this week – we are entering our honey in several classes and have created a special cake for the competition
Jobs for this week:
- Prepare our special Christmas Courses: making Wreaths, Puddings and Hampers
- Practise Panettone – They need to cool hanging upside down to stop the light bread sinking…
- Make some Pumpkin and Apple Chutney for our Bonfire Bakery Day
Have a good week yourself…
Join us on the Journey!
