Kentish Town Vegbox

Sunnyside Community Garden Collection Point gets a glow up !

❄️ Celebrate the Winter Solstice-ish with Kentish Town Vegbox! ❄️

Join us for a Winter Solstice-ish Celebration Drink as we close out the year together. This festive gathering is the perfect chance to unwind with fellow Vegbox members, share some winter cheer, and discuss the future of our wonderful community.

🗓 Date: 4th December 2024, 7-9pm
📍 Location: The Magdala Tavern, 2a S Hill Park, London NW3 2SB

Event Highlights:
Winter Solstice-ish Drinks: Gather for a cozy, informal evening over festive drinks as we celebrate the season.
General Meeting: Reflect on the year, share ideas, and have your voice heard in shaping the next steps for Vegbox.
Whether you’re looking to get more involved or just want to raise a glass with friends, we’d love to see you there!

📧 More Information: Details about the location and meeting agenda will be shared soon. Stay tuned for updates via email or social media.

Let’s wrap up the year with good company, warm drinks, and a look forward to an exciting new year for Kentish Town Vegbox! ☃️

Please return your empty vegbags. We know that they are beautiful and colourful, but by putting them back into circulation and reusing them, we can reduce the amount of plastic we introduce into the environment

When things are going smoothly in the yard, it almost looks like a choreographed dance

I hope you all appreciate the diversity in the colour & textures of these aubergines like I do. We love wonky veg!

Some nice Batavia lettuces all the way down from Yorkshire in many of the bags this week. I love this lettuce, the nice wavy but crisp leaves, the earthy but not too powerful taste. They are the most popular lettuce in France, and often known as French lettuce, or laitue batavia if you will.

These lettuces are grown at Newfields Organics, a really interesting farm. They are one of the largest and most successful organic farms we work with, based up on the North York Moors on relatively marginal agricultural land. Rosemary Wass runs the farm. She and her husband, who died 16 years ago, were organic pioneers in the 1980s, driven by their strong Christian faith to farm in a way that is ecologically, economically, and socially just. They have always supported international development causes alongside their work in Yorkshire, as well as being committed Labour Party members.

On we go into autumn, with its mix of rainy days, sunny spells, gusty wind and occasional foggy mornings. It’s the season that keeps you on your toes! Lots of nice veg though. I like the squash at this time of year. Sweet and versatile. Good for roasting, and often you can eat the skin as well as the flesh. We often roast it and then incorporate the chunks of skin and flesh into a hearty autumnal salad.

Don’t forget to return your re-usable Vegbox bags and packaging.

When you want to take a holiday from Vegbox, please let us know by Tuesday of the week before, i.e. today!

Tom Steele

Another successful day packing fruit & veg Thanet Youth & Community Centre !

Feeling stuck in a food rut and tired of cooking the same meals every week? Vegbox will introduce you to new foods, flavours, and recipes that will help you expand your repertoire and bring excitement back into your kitchen

What an emphatic review! Hearing how much our members love our veg boxes makes it all worth it. 🌱🍅

Today we were shouting about vegbox at York Rise Street Party. Lovely to meet and speak to so many people interested in local organic veg. A special thanks to Tom, Morgan, Mariangela, Caleb, Roland and Ruth for helping out on the stall and the team who organise York Rise Street Party!

Join us for an Apple Pressing & Mulling event at Mother Canteen & London School of Mosaic! Celebrate the autumn season by pressing apples collected from local London apple trees, helping to reduce waste and create delicious, fresh apple juice.

Enjoy the aroma of spiced apple drinks as we mull some of the juice for a warm, festive treat. It's a fantastic opportunity to learn about apple pressing, engage with the community, and savour the flavours of fall.

Whilst you're there sipping fresh apple juice join us for lunch at Mother Canteen. Mother is a vibrant community cafe serving up flavours from around the world alongside cake, coffee and good vibes to the Gospel Oak community and beyond.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Recipe: roasted carrots with carrot top pesto

You could also puree the roasted carrots with stock into a soup and have the carrot top pesto swirled in it as a nice green garnish.

bunch of carrots 5 tbsp olive oil

½ garlic clove 1 tbsp pine nuts

25g grated parmesan 10 basil leaves

Stir in some yoghurt if you fancy it

Preheat oven to 200°C. Trim the tops from the carrots, leaving a little bit of stem attached.
Toss the carrots, 1 tbsp olive oil, and salt and pepper on a baking tray.
Roast the carrots, tossing occasionally, for 25-35 minutes, until golden brown and tender.
Meanwhile for the pesto, use a handful of carrot tops. You want to use the leafiest parts, avoid the tough stems.
Blend the garlic, pine nuts, basil leaves, parmesan, carrot top leaves and 4 tbsp olive oil to a coarse paste. A small spice grinder might be better for this job than a big food processor. The carrot top leaves can be quite tough to process.
Season the pesto to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in some yoghurt if you fancy it.
Serve the carrots with pesto drizzled on them.

" Wanted to share a delish salad we made with some of the ingredients from last week's family bag.

We made this salad using your asparagus and leeks (and added your beautiful beetroots too). It was SO good! "

Gill

To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

Hello!

The weather is so changeable this spring! Our farmers tell of watching the weather forecasts hawkeyed, waiting for favourable dry days when they can plant out the new season crops. As Sarah Green writes from the Essex coast, “It’s disappointing to have a backlog of plants so early in the season but we don’t have any worries about having a full reservoir for this year’s growing season!”

Lots of nice fresh pak choi in the bags from Wild Country Organics at the moment. Pak choi literally translates as “white vegetable” in Cantonese. It’s been grown in China for 2,000 years or so, and first came to Europe around 250 years ago. “Asian greens” like pak choi and komatsuna, also in some of the bags this week, grow really well in our damp, cool climate and have become very popular with UK growers over the last decade or so. It’s light and crisp, so it does suit stir frying well. While I would usually cook the crispy stem, the leaves are very good raw.

Here’s hoping for more of the sunny spring days than the moody rainy spring days over the coming weeks! And lots of nice light green salads and stir fries.

Tom Steele

To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

Tea and poem by the lovely Martyn break at packing Wednesday!

Hello!

It’s spring! The season of purple sprouting, rhubarb and fresh crispy greens.

Sarah writes from Ripple Farm:

“March has been very wet, with very few dry windows to do any field work. We had a few consecutive dry days mid month, better than forecast, so we made the most of it and got out in the fields. We mowed some of the green manure and also managed a few more hours of ploughing. Martin planted a very small area of potatoes and sowed some salad, spinach and carrots. The ground conditions weren’t the best for direct seeding but with rain due again the next day and subsequently we had to make the best of it.

So, there will be lots to do when the ground dries up enough. We’re getting some lovely sunny, windy days that almost dry it up enough and then it rains again!!”

Ripple Farm is a 100 acre farm near Canterbury in Kent. We’ve worked with them since our very first week of trading. They are a reliable supplier to many organic box schemes around London.
To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

Plant sale at one of our favourite collection points today; ! Egg hunt at 2pm

Hello!

We’ve passed over the spring equinox, the days are officially longer than the nights, and surely spring is here at last… more or less! The blackthorn trees are covered in frothy white flowers, the hawthorn hedge has put forth its buds, and wild garlic is everywhere in the woods.

We have wild garlic from Ripple Farm in the bags this week and next week. Martin at Ripple Farm has an arrangement with Hilary from Burscombe Cliff farm next door. She is an organic mixed livestock farmer and has wild garlic growing in her woods. Ripple Farm supplies her animals with some of their waste vegetables (mainly potatoes) and in return she lets him harvest her wild garlic. It’s a wonderful short-lived spring treat. Use it quickly as it wilts fast.

The veg bags are getting lighter now: carrots are the only winter roots still left. It’s mostly light green leaves for a couple of months now. Enjoy the light spring produce. It’s a lovely shift in produce that suits the character of the season.
Tom Steele

To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

Very lovely Spring Equinox bring a dish food sharing afternoon ! Thank you everyone who came and brought super delicious dishes! ❤️🌟🖤
To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

Come to our ‘Bring-A-Dish Spring Party’ this Saturday 23rd March 2024. (link in bio)

Hosted at Vegbox’s home base, The Thanet community centre, we’re inviting you all to an informal community lunch. Put on your spring aprons and bring a dish to share!

• Lunch: bring a veggie dish (label with any obvious allergens)
• Children’s activities: apple pressing

Come and celebrate spring with us!

To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

To sign up to get a Vegbox go to https://vegbox.org.uk/sign-up/. Link in bio

Plant sale at one of our favourite collection pints this Sunday! Sunnyside Community Gardens! 1pm-4pm