Are you looking for a new set of tools for your community garden? The Tools Shed Project beautifully refurbishes old tools and gives them away several times a year to communities. Register your interest here and you will be contacted a couple of weeks before the next giveaway at Wormwood Scrubs on 18th January. There will also be some bird boxes and planters available, so if you have specific requests, email alisonwillis@conservationfoundation.co.uk and they will try to accommodate you.
MOST importantly – please drop off old broken tools at our partner The Remakery, 51 Lilford Road, where they will be collected by the project.
Sukant and Jerome met earlier this year in March. Sukant is a keen community and urban permaculturalist and Jerome is passionate about horticulture in general. They met at Pedlars’ Park in Lambeth, where Jerome was taking some cuttings, soon after they have spent this whole year greening the Carmelita Community Garden, helping with the Vauxhall City Farm garden, taken over neglected planters on Whitgift Street and conducted all kinds of guerilla gardening across estates and communities, planting mainly strawberries and tomatoes around the Vauxhall area. Many children, young people and families were involved throughout the year in these projects simply by passing and getting involved immediately, especially the children who loved to help with planting and watering.
Having grown rocket leaves, lettuces, spring onions and herbs they decided to throw a community BBQ at the Carmelita Centre in August, to which dozens of people from the community came to enjoy the lettuce harvest and enjoy the food people cooked on the BBQ. And this is the big vision, to develop food resilience and security with the community, to then use the harvests and yields to put on community eating events, to collectively enjoy the food and use it as a means to bring people together, develop understanding of environment, food production and histories, develop health and well being and just enjoy the wonderful sight of the small children picking edible berries and fruits from the plants.
Sukant has had a green light from Lambeth Council to start a food growing project at Pedlars’ Park, which is the first phase of a multiphase approach across Vauxhall to develop some of the green spaces into edible food forests and gardens that the community can grow and distribute at community events. They are currently enjoying particularly making their own soil and looking towards another big push from the start of Spring next year, but in the meantime you might see them around, please do stop and say ‘hello’ and have a conversation. It’s when Sukant and Jerome are out in the community growing that conversations with members of the community are had and its the best moment in the open and with the plants to have conversations as to what else we can achieve collectively.
IEL is working alongside Lambeth Council to ensure that our green spaces are protected and enhanced; by making sure that pesticide and herbicide isn’t used, to help with planting of indigenous fruit and nut trees, to encourage wildlife by leaving areas for them to hibernate or nest, by growing flowers that attract pollinators.
We fully endorse the Lambeth Biodiversity Plan and encourage our members to do so too.
We would love you to submit ideas for food-centred events, even if you’ve already registered with Sustain. In order to get onto our IEL Harvest brochure, submit your event via this google form or email us the information by 3rd September. The info you supply will also go onto our website.
Here you will find the full list of events. Each event has its own page, so click on the link to find out more.
This fantastic article was co-written by Jude Bow, Friederike Huber and Vita Bow.
It seemed such a waste; a pocket woodland, at the heart of Stockwell’s Spurgeon Estate, locked and neglected. Apart from kids climbing over the railings occasionally and a fox feeling very much at home, the garden was unused and falling into disrepair. It was particularly tragic to see this in inner London, where green spaces are so valuable. Continue reading…
Incredible Edible Lambeth is looking for new members for the body that oversees and steers its work. We welcome nominations from anyone who has a passion for nurturing local food initiatives, and who lives and/or works in Lambeth. Continue reading…
‘Composting’ is not always considered a very glamorous activity – but as gardeners, we all know the incredible benefits of creating good compost – or ‘gardeners’ gold’.
We are partnering with MakeSoil.org and are trying to persuade everyone to generate much more lovely, nutrient-rich soil by inviting our neighbours to deposit their food waste in our compost bins.
We already have seven MakeSoil sites in Lambeth – take a look at the website and type in your postcode to find your nearest site; you could become a MakeSoil supporter today.
This photo is at the Secret Garden on the Spurgeon Estate.
At our recent seed swap, the Garden Museum was humming with activity as people gathered to share seeds and started to think about the next growing season. We couldn’t believe the number of people who came through the door, eager to get a chance to talk about the next veg or flowers they were going to try growing. Continue reading…
We already have seven MakeSoil sites in Lambeth – take a look at the 
