Lambeth residents welcomed the arrival of a homegrown sustainable food festival in Brixton on Saturday.
As part of Urban Food Fortnight across London, Incredible Edible Lambeth (IEL) are running community food events in Brockwell Park and Brixton.
Residents were invited to Brockwell Park Community Greenhouses to promote the growth of healthy, sustainable, hyperlocal food, with a squash roast up event.
Director Kate Sebag said: “People are meeting and talking to each other about local food, which is great. It encourages people to get out of the house, and back to nature.”
At the event, a broad mix of food growers, activists, and families were served vegetables cooked in an on-site clay oven, along with home-baked sourdough bread.
The greenhouse also played host to a gorgeous gourds exhibition, displaying ornamental gourds shaped like swans, bottle necks and even vegetable likenesses of Jeremy Corbyn.
The IEL harvest festival includes walks, workshops, and open days in food-growing spaces across the borough.
The community interest company was founded in 2010 and utilises a broad range of volunteers. The company seeks to attract funding to run programmes that educate people on the need for a more localised food system.
It does this through encouraging community transformation of food spaces, learning and encouraging food growing projects in schools, and supporting and connecting local businesses.
There are now 200 local growing projects in Lambeth, with the number continuing to increase.
Duncan Law, of Transition Town Brixton, one of the event’s partners, said: “Local food is essential and also delicious and empowering.
“I think it’s really important that people get together and food is an amazing mobiliser of people getting together.”
Urban Food Fortnight and Incredible Edible Lambeth harvest festival both run until Sunday October 7.
