Puppets, prison, peas and publication! by Helen Babbs
By: Steve Ott
Helen's potted potatoes are blooming and nearly ready for lifting
My aerial edible garden is the main character in my first book, which is published by Timber Press next week. It’s called ‘My Garden, the City and Me: Rooftop Adventures in the Wilds of London’, and is about the glory of growing things, nature and a side of London that’s not often explored.
It reveals how much wildlife a city can support and inspires readers to see built-up spaces in new ways. It’s also an ode to how satisfying urban gardening can be, no matter how hopeless at it you are. It’s by no means a how-to guide, more the story of a first gardening year and the adventures that ensued. www.aerialediblegardening.wordpress.com/book/
Talking of rooftop adventures… I found myself on top of the Little Angel Theatre on Friday – an old Islington temperance hall that was transformed into a puppet theatre in the 1960s and has been charming audiences ever since. David the technical manager, an adventurous sort, invited me up a ladder and onto the roof. It was as if he had read my rooftop loving mind.
It was great to peer down through skylights into the workshop, which is all hung about with puppet parts, and then over and into the tops of the trees that surround the building. Secret aerial gardens balance on top of the ivy woven houses of the theatre’s neighbours.
Back on ground level and in the less salubrious surroundings of my home turf, on Sunday I found myself in HM Prison Holloway. This weekend was ‘Open Garden Squares Weekend’ and one of the gardens on offer was the prison grounds – quite a large expanse of space that’s cared for full-time by a team of inmates.
I found the prison a fascinating place. It has an understated presence on Camden Road – as a local I’m definitely aware of it being there but it’s also easy to forget. One thing I always remember is that it’s where the suffragettes were banged up for daring to demand equal rights.
Today it houses women serving sentences of just a few days all the way up to life-long terms. The focus is on resettlement and, while it’s obviously not a place anyone would choose to be, it does offer inmates opportunities to learn new skills and encourages them to see that there are alternative ways of life available to them. Its atmosphere is not wholly negative.
Sixteen women form the prison garden team – they apply via the labour board and are assessed as to whether they’re suitable. The team’s allowed to spend lots of time outside and to use power tools, so the job is seen as a privilege that’s only open to a lucky few. It’s a full-time position, all day every day, and the women are taught to manage the various shrubberies, borders and beds as if they were tending a public park.
Typically it was terrible weather during our visit, but the grounds looked well cared for and some parts were really very lovely. We were shown a scrappy triangle of land that’s soon to be home to several laying chickens, while an old astro turf pitch is slowly being filled with raised beds for vegetable growing. Some prisoners at a male jail are currently constructing greenhouses for the patch.
Constant locking and unlocking of doors and gates punctuated our tour. We were surrounded on all sides by a towering red brick wall and fences topped with mean tangles of barbed wire. It was a unique visit that I’ll never forget.
Less severe but equally as exciting is the fact an Urban Physic Garden has just opened down in Southwark, south London. It’s a gorgeous pop-up creation, full of potent plants with medical powers and fragrant herbs that heal. It’s open throughout the summer and all kinds of marvellous things will happen.
www.aerialediblegardening.co.uk
Current Issue: June 2012
Edible crops for little plots
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Plus... Grow strawberries with Toby Buckland... Bob Flowerdew answers your gardening queries... Leeks and dwarf beans made easy with advice from Joe Maiden and Andrew Tokely...
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• Next issue on sale: 1st June 2012