Cultivate London is growing full steam ahead this Spring. Our new germination table can hold over 40,000 germinating seedlings at once. Together with our propane heated germination chamber, we will grow enough seedlings to provide nearly 200 trays of potted veg, herbs and bedding flowers per week in peak season, and also enough salad to harvest 20kg a week.

In the picture – proud Head Grower Ben Simplins watches Apprentice Grower Justin Pearson put the final board in our recycled growing table.

The Cracked Pot also serves as a pick up point for Edible Ealing’s community vegetable box scheme, which includes Cultivate London’s award winning salads.

Cultivate London is looking to expand its West London customer base of independent retailers that sell live plants. If you are interested in stocking locally grown plants that benefit young unemployed people, take a look at the attached flyer, and contact Denis Bowen . We offer weekly deliveries, no minimum order sizes and a sale or return basis, together with competitive wholesale prices.

If your food-growing project needs some hep setting up a tunnel, do let us know! We are happy to come along and build it for you, or help out with the process. To date, we’ve successfully built eight poly-tunnels, and relocated four of them! Contact Ben Simpkins on 07531190003.

We could not have made the move without the help of a number of community volunteers, for whom we are very grateful. In particular, Mike Freely and the rest of the crew from Octink were absolutely amazing. Not only did Octink send a huge number of people over to help us shift our four poly tunnels, as well as thousands of trays of seedlings and pots of plants, they lent us a pitchfork and a truck for a couple of days as well. So to Octink, and to everyone else who helped us out, a huge THANK YOU is in order!

Now that we are set back up, we can get back to the growing. We currently have a number of beautiful winter flowers in bud, including paperwhite daffs, pansies, primulas, polyanthus and hyacinths. We are also are currently potting on a vast number of other bulbs and flowers that just waiting to spring forth in the next couple of months. If you are interested in any of these, please do not hesitate to contact Denis Bowen and place an order (denis@cultivatelondon.org or 07906763908). We will also be attending one last market for the year this coming weekend (22nd December) at West Ealing Farmers Market. We hope to see you there!

A map can be found below the pictures on our farm locations/brentford lock page. Access to the site, which has limited parking space, is via East St off Commerce Rd. Our site is next to MP Motor Repairs – take the right hand fork of the space between parked cars and we’re behind red double gates. There is pedestrian access from Durham Wharf Drive behind the Holiday Inn Hotel, which will suit bus users and people walking from Brentford and the towpath of the Grand Union Canal.

Our Open Day coincides with London- and UK-wide community growing campaigns called the Capital Growth Open Day and The Big Dig . Capital Growth seeks to help create 2,012 new community growing spaces in London by the end of 2012. The Big Dig is a nationwide project that seeks to engage 10,000 people in community growing projects across England by 2013.