Buying in Season: Growing Communities
Chatting with Richenda Wilson, Marketing Co-ordinator at Growing Communities, was a big deal for me. Growing Communities was one of my main inspirations for starting this campaign. Collecting its organic fruit and veg bags is a highlight of my week and has been a huge education in seasonal eating.
Growing Communities has been supplying people in Hackney with delicious, affordable organic food and building a better, fairer food system for the past 20 years. The award-winning social enterprise runs a fruit and veg scheme that brings control of food back to the community and pays fair prices to local organic farmers. They also run the UK’s only all-organic farmers’ market, home to about 25 small farmers and food producers, every Saturday, 10am till 2.30pm, in front of St Paul’s Church, Stoke Newington, N16 7UY.
Pioneering farms in Hackney and Dagenham produce fantastic local salad, fruit, veg, jams and sauces, while training local residents, including children and lone parents, in food growing and production. An all round brilliant enterprise!
1. How conscious do you think Hackney residents are of seasonal eating?
It’s very hard to be aware of the seasons when supermarket shelves are stocked to give the appearance of “perpetual summer” (tomatoes and strawberries in December, Peruvian asparagus whenever you want it…). Few of us have time to read every label and check where something was grown — and not every shop discloses that information. As a basic rule, if it comes from New Zealand, Chile, Argentina or Kenya — even Spain — it’s probably not in season here! People who join our veg scheme say one of the things they most enjoy is learning to eat with the seasons and discovering how much better everything tastes when you do that.
2. What do you think would help people make better seasonal shopping decisions?
There are many guides to seasonal eating that can help people make better decisions. If you see UK-grown tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes or peppers before July, they will almost certainly have been grown in heated greenhouses, which is not good from an energy or environmental point of view.
Shopping at farmers’ markets, if you’re lucky enough to have one, is a great way to find out what’s in season locally — and to discover rare fruit and veg that you may not find anywhere else. If you shop in supermarkets, you might think that butternut is the only squash. At our market in autumn and winter you’ll find up to 10 different varieties of squash in a range of beautiful colours, shapes, textures and flavours.
3. What food do you look forward to coming into season the most?
For me, it’s about the veg that have the shortest UK season, as they feel like the most precious. In March and April, it’s wild garlic (sweet, mild leaves you can substitute for onions and garlic); asparagus and broad beans in June and July; succulent sweetcorn in August and September; strawberries, plums and peaches that actually taste of something in summer. But lots of things taste extra special after a long break — nothing can replace the flavour bomb of the new season’s first locally grown tomato (usually July) or apple (in late August).
4. What’s your top tip for eating seasonal produce in Hackney?
Join a veg scheme! Here at Growing Communities, we choose the best seasonal produce available each week from organic farms that are as local as possible, which saves our members the trouble of making those decisions. At certain times of year, this means buying European organic produce through our wholesalers. At the farmers’ market, all the produce is locally grown — in Essex, Kent and Cambridgeshire. And all the farmers are there at the market, so they can tell you the best ways to prepare and cook the food — as well as which field it was grown in and who picked it!
5. What British fruit or veg do you think is undervalued and underloved?
I love our fantastic selection of roots — great for hearty meals on winter days. Who needs imported sweet potatoes, when you can choose celeriac, beetroot, swede, kohlrabi or Jerusalem artichokes? They all offer incredible value for money, and work well in comforting roasts, warming stews, cheesy gratins or simply grated raw into salads. Yum.
For more information about Growing Communities, the farmers’ market and how to sign up to their veg scheme visit their website.
If you are a local business/community scheme who promotes seasonal eating and would like to be featured please drop us an email at e8inseason@gmail.com.
