FOOD
growing local
Food – we can’t live without it! Yet so much of all we eat comes with many food miles and a large carbon footprint.
Transition Tynedale food projects encourage the use of locally grown (including home grown), herbs, fruit and vegetables. Read on to find out how you too can be involved! We always welcome new helpers.
EDIBLE HEXHAM
The Trail
Walk and eat your way around Hexham, be inspired to grow your own and help reduce food miles. That’s the message in our ‘Edible Hexham Trail’. The easy three-kilometre (two mile) trail mixes local food history with a walk around all the Edible Hexham beds and the Community Garden. An extension takes you to Tyne Green and the Community Orchard.
Help yourselves!
In spite of the watering challenges, it has been the best year to date for the planters in the two Hexham locations, (Sele Gate, and the Garden Coffee House) and also the beds near the Wentworth Café in the Wentworth Car Park. They are all managed by Transition Tynedale volunteers and you are invited to pick and use the various leaves, herbs and fruit that grow in them. With climate change and potential food shortages increasingly on the agenda, it is more important than ever to think and grow local as much as we can.
Hexham Railway Station Planters
Volunteers also manage the railway station planters which are funded by Northern Rail and create a lovely welcome for passengers’ arrival. Volunteers also look after the Edible planters on the Railway Station forecourt – three big ones and two smaller square ones, reminding you that a snip or two of herbs, or lettuce, or edible flowers will greatly improve your supper!
HEXHAM COMMUNITY GARDEN
Wassailing the fruit trees seems to have been a success judging from the excellent apple harvest in 2025! This was part of the Hexham Library’s Wintertide Project, which Bex and her team worked on through the remaining cold months.
Regular volunteer numbers meant that land was cleared for a BUPA funded polytunnel in April 2025.
The polytunnel made for a wonderful and varied amount of growing, which allowed us to donate produce to Hexham Community Grocery every week from April to the end of October.
Over 20 events this year were attended by between 8 and 80 people including friends from Hexham Family Hub, Hexham Youthy, Hexham Library, Hexham Beavers, Living Woods, as well as several of our schools and nurseries and lots of members of our community!
Visitors are warmly invited to use, and volunteers warmly welcomed to help, at our Community Garden.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
It all started when Transition Tynedale was offered use of some land by Northumberland County Council in 2010. This was right next to the former site of Hexham’s Middle School.
Now, thanks to a great volunteer team, it has developed into a beautiful haven of native species, with hedges and fruit trees as well as crops.
All this should continue to be nurtured as a valued community asset during the redevelopment of the former Hexham middle school site.
Why not come and see for yourself ? We are number eight on the Edible Hexham Trail.
STORIES FROM OUR PATCH
Looking forward, Grow Hexham and Hexham Library have just launched a fabulous new Project “Stories from Our Patch.” This is part of the library’s Europe Challenge funded by the ECF, in which we will use food stories and memories from the community to create a from scratch gardening course, with cooking and food sharing events throughout the year. A legacy will be memory slates for Hexham Community Garden, amongst other wonderful things. We invite everyone to get involved and share their food memories, so we can preserve them in the year ahead.
Contact: growhexham@hexhamtowncouncil.gov.uk
COMMUNITY ORCHARDS
We’ve so far arranged planting of fruit trees in three local areas.
Acomb First School
In 2016 Acomb First School welcomed the offer from Transition Tynedale to plant fruit trees on their field, adding to their existing orchard. The trees are now tall and healthy. They received annual winter pruning in their first years to ensure a compact shape.
Volunteers of all ages helped plant 16 trees: Ashmead’s Kernel, Newton Wonder, Ellison’s Orange, Katy, Red Sentinel, Sunset, Arthur Turner, Blenheim Orange, with a Golden Hornet crab apple, an Opal plum and the greengage, Reine Claude de Bavay.
The Gaps, Acomb
In 2022, Karbon Homes allowed ten apple trees to be planted on some green space in Acomb known as The Gaps. Many villagers came to help on the day and the trees are now growing well.
Tyne Green
In 2018, Northumberland County Council gave us permission to plant a similar mix of 13 trees at Tyne Green, near the parking areas at Enna’s Café. This time we had invaluable help from Hexham Lions Club volunteers.
Pruning help
All the pruning is done by a Transition Tynedale volunteer, with the apple trees pruned each winter, and the plums and greengages in summer. At the same time the ground under each tree is cleared of grass growth, so the trees aren’t damaged by contractors who might strim too close to the trunks.
Anyone interested in learning about fruit trees and helping with this caretaking role, at Tyne Green or in Acomb, is very welcome to get in touch.
ANNUAL APPLE PRESSING
Fresh Apple Juice – delicious!
Our apple pressing stall at the Farmers Market in Hexham each October is a popular event – and FUN!
Anyone with a glut of apples is encouraged to donate them, and the resulting fresh juice is given away on the day. Bring clean containers if you want to take some away. Bring muscles if you want to have a go!
The press is hand built by Pat Turner, and is offered for use to other groups, the aim being to make best use of local produce.
For latest dates, see News/Events
ANNUAL PLANT SWAP AND SHARE STALL
Each spring Transition Tynedale organises a stall at the Hexham Farmers Market.
We encourage people to bring along spare seedlings and plants for swapping or donating.
These always include many edibles and always end in many happy folk walking away with bundles of new plants.