Emerge from Liverpool Street railway station and you’re in the heart of London’s financial district. It’s lunchtime on a sunny April day and the streets, courtyards and manicured stretches of green are abuzz with crisply dressed city workers, gathering in patches of sunlight to eat their sushi and salads. The sun, when it shines in London, generally makes people nicer. I’m heading to Spitalfields Farm, one of London’s largest and oldest urban farms, and walking there through this maze of glass and granite has only served to heighten my excitement.
A stone’s throw from the Square Mile, I’m greeted by the donkeys of Spitalfields and the squeals of children. Turning into the farm, past the little wood shack that’s the cafe, I spot Lutfun Hussain. Clad in a sari, she’s working away in the farm’s nursery, transplanting seedlings with the absorption and deftness only a plant-lover can display. She has been a volunteer at the farm, mainly in the food garden, since 1999.
“I came to London from Bangladesh in 1976,” she tells me. “I missed my garden back home.”
The farm is in Tower Hamlets, a London borough known for its large Bengali community. Even the street signs here are bilingual, and the farm, too, is dotted with notices and plant markers in English and Bengali. At this time of year, the raised beds and planters are filled with crops of spring vegetables, including mooli, mustard greens, and several varieties of chard, kale and onions. There are also countless herbs and flowers, such as evening primrose, musk mallow, bedstraw, yarrow and ox-eye daisies. Interplanting vegetables with flowers and herbs is an effective method of keeping away pests and attracting pollinators.
The farm attracts volunteers from the local community. Hussain is a founding member of the Coriander Club, which meets twice a week to sow, transplant and look after vegetable crops. In exchange, the members get to take fresh produce home. In another venue, Hussain also gives a healthy cooking class to members.
Like most city farms, Spitalfields is not a large-scale commercial enterprise. It serves more as a place where members of the densely populated, built-up Tower Hamlets area can become knowledgeable about their natural environment and sustainable gardening methods. Urban farms place people firmly back into the farm-to-fork story. According to the Capital Growth Harvest-ometer, the farm has produced an impressive 12,622 meals since March 2014 – all the food consumed locally.
“At Spitalfields, we don’t use any chemicals,” says Hussain. “We use lots of manure and worms to enrich our soil. Flowers, mulch and rotting logs give us the biodiversity we need. Annual crop rotation also helps control disease.”
The farm employs raised beds to grow plants, instead of digging, which can stimulate weeds and destroy soil-life.
It’s almost 4pm. I treat myself to a lemon cake, and find a spot to sit. Nearby, a group of children are making little parachutes from used plastic cups, metal cans, bits of paper and shopping bags. In the distance, I can make out the distinctive shape of the Gherkin and other London skyscrapers. Behind me, almost grazing the farm fence, trains rumble past every few minutes. The children race to the tree house to trial their creations – their parachutes gently fluttering down to the earth. It’s a magical scene.
Shumaila Ahmed is a Dubai-based gardener, teacher, researcher and writer.
