The Urban Harvest

More information about Urban Harvest 2020 is coming soon, just watch this space!

Children at Snaresbrook Primary School thrilled to win the prize for the heaviest pumpkin recorded on our Harvest-ometer!

In 2019, the participating Urban Harvest gardens celebrated the variety of food grown in urban areas through a range of harvest activities, hands-on workshops and tours. Over 33 events were held and festivities included:

• A FungiFest at Rainbow Grow in Hackney which included an urban mushroom growing session and mushroom buffet.
• Bonny Downs Food Growing Project harvested a range of fruit and vegetables and sowed their seeds for winter.
• Apple Days were held at both Broomfield Community Orchard and MindFood in Ealing.
• Hackney Herbal celebrated the autumn equinox with nature-based craft, herbal drinks and teas made from the harvest of urban herbs.
• Regents Park Allotment Garden held their annual harvest party where visitors enjoyed fresh apple juice and pizza, live music, garden competitions and plenty of goodies for sale.

Gardens across the capital received a surge of new visitors during the Urban Harvest with over half of those who attended never having visited the garden before. Such a high turnout was welcomed by the gardens and Rainbow Grow say that opening their doors for the Urban Harvest is “really nice” as you “have new people visit the garden who otherwise would not have been there”. The Community Plot at Whetstone Stray Allotment explain that their vegetable harvest and soup sharing event enabled everyone to learn that “veg they might throw away is tasty and good”.

In 2019, Capital Growth ran a range of competitions throughout the Urban Harvest and received a range of fabulous entries. The winner of the Best Photo competition was The Community Garden at Christchurch Primary School with their photo of keen volunteers on their open day.

Snaresbrook Primary School beat out the competition to win the Heaviest Pumpkin competition with their huge pumpkin above weighing an estimated 60kg!  Maryon Park Community Garden’s Family Forest School workshop won them the Most Enterprising Activity competition. Well done to everyone who got involved in this year's Urban Harvest!

The Urban Harvest is a great way to come together and celebrate the harvest with your existing volunteers, as well as opening your garden to new visitors and volunteers.

"We hadn't got around to using the Capital Growth Harvest-o-meter before but having to weigh the pumpkin got us started - we now need to buy scales as we borrowed them on the day." Brigid, Community Plot at Whetstone Stray Allotments

“Pumpkins are getting heavier, tomatoes are ripening and peas can still be eaten fresh from the pod – September is the season of abundant harvest and a perfect time to discover what’s growing in the city. It’s a great way to meet new people, get outside and learn more about all the amazing ways to grow food in urban areas,” says Janelle Conn from Capital Growth.  

2019 participating Urban Harvest gardens