An edible tour of Hackney...
Led by Mikey Tomkins, bee keeper and PhD student at University of Brighton, we wandered round Hackney's hidden growing spaces. Actually, some were very much on view once you knew what you were looking at - with stretches of fencing covered in courgettes and beans (above) and elaborate living marquees called 'dudhi cages' for the dudhi or bottle gourd (below).
Mikey also runs Capital Bee and keeps bees on top of the Space Gallery on Mare Street, so we started the morning with a little taster. Light and full of elderflower and lime - matching the bees local diet. Did you know that 90% of the beehives in the southeast are in the Greater London area? And we've p lenty more rooftops that could become honey making bee farms...
Something else that was interesting to learn, was that most current urban growing plots like the ones we were viewing, are using tradition growing methods in whatever green space people have access to. So needing lots of soil, and flat space. And it isn't productive enough to really feed people fully. But what Mikey found people were valuing, was less the size or quality of the crop, per se. But the opportunity to reclaim and reuse public land together.
We had an interesting debate about the untidy nature of growing, and how this often seems at conflict with the neat perfection of bricks and concrete. And also what happens when the growing pioneers take up lots of space and it's harder for newcomers to join in. Then we wandered past a little patch of strawberries on a front lawn, and having to work things out didn't seem like a reason not to try in the first place.
Space Gallery: You Are Hungry
Mikeys' edible maps
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