Features

How Waltham Forest can feed itself

Greg Frey on a project to help residents grow more food in their gardens

Food growers
credit Holly McGratten

First, some stats. Nearly half-a-million children in London face hunger during the school holidays and 3.2 million adults across the UK have reported not eating for a whole day because they couldn’t afford food.

Meanwhile, we have lost 70% of our wildlife in the last 50 years, and the climate crisis has become impossible to ignore.

We need rapid action from our government, but this is also a moment for us to step up and start changing things ourselves. This is why we decided to start the Time To Grow! network of food growers in Waltham Forest.

We are people with unused gardens, working with experienced food growers and people who want to learn and have time to give. We share compost, seeds, skills and time. And all of our food is shared between residents, volunteers and Walthamstow’s Gleaners Cafe – who turn it into delicious meals at a price people can choose.

We started a year ago as an experiment. Would people really want to donate their garden space to growing fruit and veg? And, would volunteers really be up for donating their time?

The answer has been a clear ‘yes’. So far, we’re growing in eight gardens across Waltham Forest, three in Hackney, and with many more offers that we don’t yet have the capacity to support.

We’re driven by a big dream of a city that can support itself. Why does London import 99% of its food? Why are we dependent on big chains to feed ourselves? And what will we do as supply shocks continue to put prices up?

Times of crisis can also be an opportunity to build something better. While we could wait for the government or charities to come and help, we want to reclaim our ability to support ourselves. Some 2,000 hectares of Waltham Forest are private gardens. Taking Waltham Forest’s own gardening social media influencer Alessandro Vitale’s (‘Spicy Moustache’) garden yields as a benchmark, we could grow almost half the amount of food we need, worth roughly £700million.

And that is without even mentioning the benefits to wildlife, carbon sequestration in soil, health improvements, connecting to nature, reducing food waste and so on. So why wouldn’t we?

To do something at such a scale we’ll need all the help we can get. If you want to get involved, just get in touch.

Find out more about Time to Grow and get in touch:
Email [email protected]
Visit timetogrow.uk


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