2015 is coming to an end and we are making plans for the new season ahead at the Model Market Garden in Marble Hill Park. The autumn gave us a regular harvest endive, lettuce, kale, chard, turnips, radishes, runner beans, and flowers: marigolds, cornflowers and love-in-a-mist. A generous public donated more than £350 to the project over the last growing season in appreciation of our produce. We bought glass cloches, as used traditionally in market gardens of last century, and these together with more modern cloches have been put to good use to protect the spring cabbages.

Eight children from years 3 - 5 at St Edmund's Catholic Primary school enjoyed a Saturday morning session at the Model Market Garden in Marble Hill Park, led by Kate Robinson, Community Garden Co-ordinator. After a tool quiz and harvesting carrots the children planted onions and garlic and identified heritage varieties already planted in the garden, by comparing what they could see with historical postcards.

Until 2015 Sarah Carney was a volunteer researcher for the Jam Yesterday Jam Tomorrow project, which gave her the opportunity to combine her interests in research, literature, local history and gardening. Sarah looked into the life and work of R D Blackmore who is best known as the novelist and author of Lorna Doone, but little known for his 40 years’ work as a market gardener and horticulturalist in Teddington. This blog re-post from 2014 is based on her research findings.

Sarah Carney

Blue Badge Guide Pamela McHutchon led the thirty four of us who joined the Teddington Heritage Walk on Wednesday, exploring both literature and the market gardening past of the area. Richard Doddridge Blackmore, author of Lorna Doone, was a focus for the route and for Pamela's entertaining talk.

More than a thousand local children and parents have benefited from workshops run by Ed Bartram, Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow's education officer. Today Ed completed his final day of Market Garden sessions at Springwell School in Hounslow with three groups of children from Year 6. Thank you letters from children over the months prove the success of the project. Aarya neatly summarised how Ed makes learning sociable, serious and engaging all at the same time: "Some of the questions were hard but when we all tried all of us found out the answers.

What is known about the use of wind-driven water pumps in market gardens of Middlesex? An enquiry from Angela Parton of Feltham led to the following response from David Lawrie, local historian and volunteer with Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow:

Acres of glass-houses covered parts of Hampton up until the 1970s, growing tomatoes and other food crops as well as cut flowers for the London market. In one of the glass houses the scent of gardenias was so strong that employees were barred from entering for more than a few minutes at a time.

Nearly fifty London Wildlife Trust (LWT) staff from across the capital came to Twickenham Yacht Club to hear about Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow, the Environment Trust's project to celebrate market gardens in Middlesex. The presentation included a clip from the Jam project's sound archives - Stanley Cheeseman talking about his experiences of the Hampton nurseries. Then we visited to the Model Market Garden in Marble Hill Park.

23 Oct 2015: Many interesting questions were explored by enthusiasts at the launch of "Digging up your own market garden: a tookit on how to research and create a productive market garden" today at Orleans Gallery and Park Coach House. How can we create a market garden in an urban environment? What lessons can we learn from history and our market garden heritage? How can we make our food sources local, affordable, sustainable?

​Juliana Vandegrift comes into post on 2 November as Heritage Project Manager for the Heritage Lottery Fund project Jam Yesterday, Jam Tomorrow, exploring the history and potential future of market gardens. Juliana trained as an oral historian at Sussex University where she studied for her Master's degree in Life History Research, graduating in 2008.