Time to Grow are a collective of food growers in North London helping turn unloved land into thriving food-growing spaces.
Our Manifesto
We are stewarding a dispersed farm, growing up in the cracks of the privatised city, our farm is common land.
This farm is a different dream for our city, a reclaiming of our right to feed ourselves.
We dream of all people well fed, your grans cake recipe shared, an old seed variety saved, the world 100 years from now and a little bit of kindness in a tough week.
Our farm holds in it a dream of an end to powerlessness. A final no to the vampires disguised as corporations draining us of our wealth. A no to the feeling that our city is a thing that happens to us rather than by us. A no to the organised forgetting of our relationships to this land, to resistance and to the knowledge we need to look after ourselves.
Our farm, spread across abandoned gardens, verges and plots, is a place where we follow different rules: we want land to feed everyone, we want everyone to feel welcome, we want stories and knowledge to flow freely, and we want a moment's rest.
Our farm bans pesticides, monocultures and loneliness. Yes, our farm has the seeds of an alternative food system with the tools to free ourselves from depending on supermarkets that exploit farmers across the country and the world, but it is also simply a place for people to meet.
This farm, your farm too, is just the latest weave in a long, old yarn, turning away from helplessness, despair, impotent anger and bullying towards collaboration, community power and autonomy.
How do we work?
We organise ourselves as a cooperative where all of our coordinators help decide the direction of the project. We practice organic growing which supports wildlife while producing food. We prioritise working collaboratively with garden owners and dream of tight-knit streets where everyone can be involved in stewarding the land.
What have we achieved?
Helped transform over 25 sites into food growing places.
Donated hundreds of kg of food to community food projects including the Gleaners Workers Cooperative, Curry Club CIC and North London Action for the Homeless.
Created a food garden with students at Kelmscott school
Delivered a horticulture training program for the London Borough of Waltham Forest
Helped connect elderly garden owners with their wider community, reducing isolation and loneliness
Who supports us?
We are currently delivering grant funded work by:
City Bridge Trust
The National Lottery Awards for All
Grassroots Grant, Postcode Lottery
Metropolitan Public Gardens Association
The Blagrave Trust
We have historically been funded by:
Friends of the Earth
LBWF Food Innovation Fund
