Stepney City Farm’s “Sustainable Urban Growing project”, aims to explore how food growing can better meet local needs, learning from and including people with their own experience of traditional farming and growing techniques.
Here we share a blog published on the 16th December 2024 by Stepney City Farm.
Growing together
In August 2023, thanks to a grant from the Women’s Environmental Network, Stepney City Farm was lucky enough to be able to recruit two new Sylheti-speaking Food Growers to work alongside our established growing team. Time has flown, and with the grant now coming to an end, we thought it would be a great moment to reflect on the achievements of the past 15 months, and the learning we’re taking forward for the future.
Below we have given Growers Tahmina, Sajia, Alan, and Danielle a chance to tell us their story in their own words – with honorary mentions to our main food growing volunteers Rachel and Evelyn, as well as Justine, who was on secondment with us for six months.
Alan’s story
As a part-time member of the Food Growing team at Stepney City Farm, it has been fascinating and encouraging to watch Danielle, our Lead Food Grower, and Tahmina and Sajia, our specialist Bengali Food Growers, share and put into practice their respective knowledge and understanding of food growing techniques over the past 15 months. What to sow, when to sow, how much to sow, when to harvest. Also, introducing Tahmina and Sajia to the techniques we use such as no-dig gardening and our knowledge of composting and how we deal with slugs and snails. Not forgetting the challenge of the ever changeable British weather – not a good year for that!
How to nurture and encourage the plants to produce fantastic crops at the right time to sell to our customers on the Farm has increased our sales. Growing larger amounts of suitable herbs to compliment the new veg is an ongoing exercise. Sharing all this knowledge from both sides of the fence has definitely increased our understanding of food growing, improved our market sales and as a by-product brought us closer together as a team. Roll on 2025!
The Food Growing Team in 2024 – clockwise from top left: Justine, Tahmina, Sajia, Alan
Tahmina’s Story
Wow! Time flies when you are having fun, and yes it has been great working at Stepney City Farm. I can’t believe how quickly these fifteen months have passed, and I am honored to have had this opportunity to be a part of this amazing farm.
I have been growing my own Bangladeshi vegetables for around eight years but growing them on the Farm is definitely different from what I’m used to. It’s very convenient to have a heated bed in a plant nursery with timed irrigation.
I love how the Farm recycles garden waste matter and the animal’s waste by composting it and putting it back on to the growing beds. There’s no need to purchase anything as we’re actively adding nutrients to the soil. I have also been able to witness the food cycle first hand. We know living things depend on other living things for food. A food chain is a natural order of what eats what – absolutely amazing!
The Farm has never grown Bangladeshi vegetables before commercially, so it was essential to have the most familiar and loved vegetables for the Farm and the community. Me and my colleague Sajia decided to grow Kodu (Bottle Gourd), Uri (Hyacinth beans), Sisinga (Snake Gourd), as well as bird’s-eye chillies.
Uri beans and their flowers
Sisinga in a polytunnel
Kodu growing from the frame
As these vegetables are normally grown in countries that have a hotter climate, it was important to get seeds that are from UK growers. We have noticed that the seeds are not cheap to buy and we ended up ordering a few seeds and relied on donated seeds. As passionate food growers, Sajia and I had plenty of seeds at home and we decided to donate them to the farm.
We were, however, too focused on the outcome of the crops and realised we had underestimated the high demand for buying these plants. There were a lot of enquiries for the plants, which unfortunately we couldn’t fully fulfill.
We have faced a few challenges on the timing of starting seed sowing and planting outside, because it was difficult to understand the British weather! This was the main reason for us being a little behind from the start. The other challenges were choosing the right location for each of the plants, considering the size of the planting area and the direction of the sunlight.
I have never grown anything in a polytunnel before and I feel we did make the best decision on growing Sisinga (snake gourd) in the polytunnel. The results were fantastic.
Most of my colleagues were very pleased with the produce of Uri and kodu but personally, it didn’t reach my expectations. Hopefully, there’s always next year.
Tahmina and Sajia with harvested kodu
Sajia’s Story
When I joined the Farm in August 2023 with Tahmina we planned, with the help of lead Food Grower Danielle, to add Bangladeshi vegetables to the Farm produce list. The idea was to engage the various communities that live in the area to come and buy Bangladeshi vegetables. Both those communities that are familiar with Bangaldeshi vegetables and those that aren’t. So we decided to grow kodu, uri beans, snake gourd and bird’s eye chillies.
As the vegetables were growing I wrote a blog post for the Farm website in the summer in order to share information about how to grow them and the benefits of eating them. I also shared a recipe on how to use the Kodu to make a delicious meal.
I spent some time working at our Farm Shop on Saturday market days and displayed the recipe for customers to take inspiration from when buying the new vegetables. I would also encourage our diverse community to try something new! Of course, they were very popular with the local Bangladeshi population. Because I could talk to them in Bangla I would encourage them to try some of the other vegetables we grow on the Farm as well, which they may not have tried before.
Sajia tending to Uri beans
Tahmina tending the Sisinga
Tahmina and Sajia in the nursery
…and tending to the kodu
During summer we held a composting workshop in the Sylheti language for local Bangladeshi residents. Many came and joined the workshop and now they find it easier to understand how composting works. If the workshop had been in English only, I don’t think many people would have come to the session. Now they know how composting works and the feedback was excellent.
Many of the Farm’s allotment plot holders only speak Sylheti. Last year, the plots were moved and rebuilt in a different part of the Farm, and so Tahmina and I have been able to communicate and interpret and help with challenges and issues that have arisen. Now the new allotments have come to life in the last year, the allotment holders are happy and that’s been very rewarding to see.
To my delight we had an excellent outcome growing the vegetables and I felt like my dreams had come true! It was joyful to harvest the things that we have grown from seed.
Throughout the year we have made excellent communications and connections with the various communities that come to the Farm and our sales have increased to reflect that.
Splitting kodu for the seeds
Kodu seeds drying
Sajia harvesting Jerusalem Artichokes
Danielle’s Story
Over the past fifteen months our Food Growing team increased both in size and knowledge. In August of last year, we welcomed Sajia and Tahmina to the team, and they imparted on us a wealth of knowledge about Bengali vegetables and growing techniques. We were introduced to Uri beans – aka hyacinth beans – and chichinga [si-singa] – aka snake gourd, as well as naga chillies and Bangla Kodu – aka bottle green gourd, that we had known of and grown before.
Last year we were given Kodu by a volunteer, it produced two very large gourds over five kilos each, however we made the rookie error of harvesting them too late. We thought the aim was to grow the biggest, heaviest Kodu. This year, Tahmina graciously explained to us that the flavour and texture of Kodu is best when it’s young and small. Sajia and Tahmina took the lead in looking after the Kodu this year, and it produced ten delicious individual Kodus from just two plants!
Tahmina with Green tomatoes
Harvested Uri beans
Kodu on the market stall with our other veg
We sowed naga chilli seeds in February on hot beds and they all germinated very well, so we expected a summer full of naga chillies. Unfortunately, disaster struck in the form of slugs and snails. One-by-one, our nagas completely disappeared – or even worse, the growing tips were eaten. Once the growing tip of a chilli has been eaten, they don’t die, but they also don’t produce any new leaves or flower buds. From twenty seeds sown we were left with less than half. We fiercely guarded them, and picked off any slugs or snails that came within ten metres! However, the nail in the coffin came in the form of a miserable wet and grey spring. None of our remaining chillies reached full maturity, which was a very disappointing outcome for all of us.
One piece of knowledge I learnt this year is when to harvest Uri beans. From my knowledge of growing French and runner beans, you don’t let the bean inside fully ripen if you want to eat the pods, as they become tough and fibrous making them difficult to eat. This is the opposite for Uri beans, the mature pods are favoured for eating and so the pods are left on the plants to ripen for much longer than you would let a French bean.
Once the crops started to mature and we began harvesting Chichinga and all the other crops, we quickly realised that we didn’t sow or plant enough to keep up with the demand for vegetables on the market. As a team, we have noted this for next year, and will be upping our seed sowing quantities.
Overall, it has been a fantastic year and a half, and we couldn’t be more grateful for our new found knowledge of growing techniques.
Sajia, Tahmina and Daniel