Poster designed by Silvana Leon @rent.a.name
Water Lane x SSAW Collective
Spring Equinox weekend 19th - 20th March
On 19th and 20th March, SSAW Collective, a community of florists, growers and chefs who create experiences that celebrate seasonality and advocate for positive change in the food and floral industries, is celebrating Spring Equinox with a weekend of events at Water Lane, Hawkhurst, in the High Weald of Kent.
Drawn to one another’s businesses by the same love for nature, craftsmanship and bringing people together, the event will welcome the onset of Spring with educational workshops led by inspiring growers Charlotte Heffernan and Chrissy Harrison, followed by a spring feasting lunch set in the Pelargonium glasshouse, by SSAW’s Head chef Lulu Cox and Water Lane’s Jed Wrobel.
Chrissy Harrison, founder of Keats Organics, an organic vegetable farm in South London, will focus on no-dig gardening techniques and soil health, while Charlotte Heffernan, head gardener at Naum House, will be demonstrating holistic cut flower growing practices and propagating. Everyone will have the opportunity to make an organic fertiliser to take home with them.
Lunch will be served to share with a menu that focuses on seasonal dishes with a produce and provenance led cooking style, created by Lulu Cox and Jed Wrobel. Guests can expect springtime dishes such as wild garlic focaccia and fava beans, nettle gnocchi, pickled pumpkin, goats curd and bitter leaves and rhubarb and custard Queen of Puddings for dessert.
The day will be a full circle celebration of Spring awakening and the garden practices that are so crucial at this time of year, as the earth starts to tilt more towards the sun, resulting in increased daylight hours and warmer temperatures. It is an important date in the growing calendar, as many plants respond with a surge of new growth. For many, it is the unofficial time to properly start gardening again, sowing seeds, adding amendments, and prepare for the season ahead. From curious beginners to seasoned growers, it is hoped there will be something for everyone, not least the opportunity to meet and share enthusiasm and set intentions for the year ahead.
Tickets cost £120 per person, including all events and lunch and are live on SSAW’s website now Shop | SSAW COLLECTIVE
-ends-
About Water Lane
www.waterlane.net | @water.lane
Walled Garden, Water Lane, Hawkhurst, Kent, TN18 5DH
Water Lane is a walled garden on the Kent/Sussex borders. Dating back to the 1800s, the site includes Grade II Victorian glasshouses, a Melon House, Cucumber House, Pelargonium House, Peach Case and a Vinery, on what was once the Tongswood Estate.
A long-term project over many years to come, the site is being sympathetically restored into a working kitchen garden with vegetable beds, cut flowers, restored vinery, outside spaces and a pavilion for dining and events. The restaurant is in the Carnation House during Winter and on the open terrace, overlooking the gardens, during Summer. There are select garden plants for sale and a small shop selling functional and beautiful objects for the house and garden.
Custodians Nick Selby and Ian James bring with them a wealth of food and horticultural passion from their previous business, Melrose and Morgan, a grocery store and kitchen with shops in London’s Primrose Hill and Hampstead. In collaboration with many partners, notably East Sussex based architectural company, RX Architects, the project has a ten-year timeline to restore the site to its full capacity as a productive walled garden with 13 Victorian glasshouses and 72 no-dig beds, measuring over 650 metres, growing vegetables, fruit, herbs to provide for the garden restaurant and cut flowers for sale, including Larkspur, Dahlias, Sweet Peas, Nigella, Honesty, Cosmos, Zinnia and Cerinthe.