Celebrate the Spring Equinox with SSAW Collective at Water Lane

Plans are fully underway for our event with SSAW Collective, a community of florists, growers and chefs, here at Water Lane on Saturday 19th March and Sunday 20th March. Book your tickets here. Each one-day event of workshops and talks will celebrate the start of the Spring Equinox which is considered amongst the green-fingered of us, as the start of the gardening year.

Tickets cost £120 per person, including all events and lunch and are live on SSAW’s website now Shop | SSAW COLLECTIVE

On each day we will be joined by Chrissy Harrison, grower and founder of Keats Organics, and head gardener and cut flower specialist, Charlotte Heffernan. Chrissy will show us how to create no dig beds and maintain soil health while Charlotte will demonstrate holistic cut flower growing practices and propagating.

SSAW’s chef Lulu Cox is creating a communal sharing feast for lunch alongside our Head Chef Jed Wrobel. On the menu are the Springtime delights of wild garlic focaccia and fava beans, nettle gnocchi, pickled pumpkin, goats curd and bitter leaves and for dessert a rhubarb and custard Queen of Puddings.

Founded by chef Lulu Cox, alongside florists and flower farmers Jess Geissendorfer and Olivia Wilson, SSAW Collective is at the forefront of the movement for positive and progressive change in our food, flower and farming systems, and in particular the sustainable consumption of flowers. Just as our attitude towards food provenance has changed for the better in recent years, SSAW Collective advocates for flowers to be sourced in line with the seasons, with an emphasis on home-grown varieties and regenerative farming practices.

Charlotte Heffernan is a plants-woman, gardener and grower. Currently she is directing cut flower production for Naum House, growing organically certified cut flowers from the cutting garden at Wardington Manor - where she also works as Head Gardener.

During her workshop at Water Lane, Charlotte will be encouraging you to get practical with plants, taking you through core propagation techniques for growing cut flowers. From seeds, root, basal and softwood cuttings, as well as division, you will learn how to handle plants to create your own cutting garden that will provide you with an abundance of flowers throughout the growing season. She will also talk through planting principles that can be scaled to your plot, looking at layout, planting methods for different species, organic techniques in cultivating cut flowers - including challenges! There will be a leaning towards creative approaches that embrace caring for the health of your soil as you go.

Chrissy Harrison is an agro-ecological food grower based in London where she has been growing food for the past eight years. She has grown food in numerous settings, ranging from the city's rooftops to its peri urban greenbelt, where she co-founded Keats Organics, a half-acre market garden, in 2014. With an emphasis on soil health and biodiversity, the market garden primarily grows salad leaves, herbs and leafy greens for restaurants and cafes, as well as serving its local community with a weekly vegetable box throughout the year.

In her workshop, Chrissy will lay out the key principles of maintaining healthy soil and explain some of the techniques for growing food in line with these principles. Topics covered will include the symbiotic relationship between plants and microbes, diversity, no-till growing beds, rotating and interplanting crops.

From curious beginners to seasoned growers, we hope there will be something for everyone, not least the opportunity to meet and share enthusiasm and set our intentions for the year ahead.

With thanks,

Nick and Ian