What We Do | Five a Day Market Garden

The Five A Day Market Garden is a community project.

Growing and selling fruit and vegetables:

Corporate team building:

Community education:

For all – both the young and the old

Volunteering:

We are staffed by volunteers, and are always on the look out for more assistance:

Welcome to the garden

In spite of the brilliant spring weather this week, the Five a Day Market Garden is closed for the foreseeable future because of the COVID-19 outbreak and the Stay At Home instructions to help reduce the spread of the virus.

This means no gardening sessions for at least three weeks (from 23 March), and probably longer.

This website will be updated when we know that we can offer gardening sessions later this spring or early summer.

Big ‘Thank You’ to all the volunteers who have made the garden look so pretty this spring.

The fruit trees and bushes are pruned, and some in blossom. The daffodils are spectacular, and we look forward to tulips soon.

When life returns to normal…

Volunteer sessions in the garden are on Wednesday and Friday mornings, usually from 10am to 1pm although times are flexible.

If there is a lot of interest for volunteering on other days we will do our best to set up new sessions.

Read the Englefield Parish Magazine, which includes news about Five a Day.

Watch this video made by Penny Locke from Penny Post at the end of April 2019; meet volunteers who help to keep the garden looking good.

Please contact Wendy Tobitt, Chair of the Five a Day Management Committee if you have any queries about the garden.

Tips from our head gardener

VEGETABLES

Winter is a great time to sow broad beans.

We’re growing Super Aguadulce, which are doing well in raised beds and the open veg beds. Strong hardy plants will provide mild, sweet beans in May and June; perfect to eat straight out of the pod!

FRUIT

Rhubarb is the first fruit (strictly it’s a vegetable!) to appear in the garden, but to look at it in winter you’d think it had died!

The huge leaves were cleared away in autumn and the ‘crowns’ covered in woodchip to keep them dry and frost-free. We’ll mulch with manure in February and watch the pink stems shoot out in March!

Look out for bundles of delicious pink stems of rhubarb on the produce table in the Garden Centre.

Monthly Seasonal Recipe

Roasted stuffed Red Kuri Squash

Ingredients:
• 1 Red Uchiki Kuri Squash
• olive oil for roasting and frying
• your favourite root and leaf vegetables, chopped
• herbs and spices to complement the vegetables
• your favourite cheese for melting

How to make it:
Preheat the oven to 190°C/gas mark 5/170°C fan. Cut the Kiri squash in half with a sharp knife from top to bottom, and then cut again into sections. Scoop out and discard the seeds.

Rub the sections with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and place on a roasting dish. Bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes until tender.

Spoon 1 tablespoon of olive oil into a frying pan. Add chopped onion, garlic, your favourite root and leaf vegetables, chopped small, e.g. cut Brussels sprouts and carrots in half, and season well with herbs and spices to complement the vegetables. Cover and cook gently until tender.

When the squash is cooked remove the dish from the oven and spoon the stuffing into each section of the squash.

Grate over your favourite cheese and put the dish back into the oven for 5 – 10 minutes until the cheese melts and bubbles. Serve immediately with warm crusty bread.