It's a 'Brand' New Year!
- Liz Lake
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
Happy New Year to all our subscribers and supporters of Bridge End Garden. As well as celebrating the New Year, we are toasting the success of The Friends of Bridge End Gardens own brand of hot sauces, jams and chutneys made with produce from the Garden.
All credit must go to Garden supporter, Rachel Hewlett of Hello Food Tours, who persuaded chef Tom Arnold at Hops and Tails, to develop recipes for the rhubarb and apples from the Walled Garden. Tom also organises foraging walks from his Linton base. Jars of the produce were sold at the Saffron Walden Tourist Information Centre and local butchers, Burtons, with £1 per jar going to The Friends. Burtons also produced a seasonal sausage made with herbs from the Garden.
In addition, Rachel organised a Gourmet Garden event in the Walled Garden in September with sausages donated by Burtons and some outstanding food from Tom Arnold. Half the profits were donated to the Friends. A very big thank you to Rachel, Tom and the retail outlets as an amazing £424 has been raised for the Friends!
The Edible Planting Project
Rachel’s venture coincided with the need to clear two large beds in the Walled Garden that had been overrun with bindweed and some ground elder. The beds were left fallow during 2025 and dug over several times. It is unlikely that we removed all the pernicious weeds but the volunteers and Garden Team have tried their best. To contribute to Rachel’s project, it was decided to refill the beds with edible plants, also called ‘edimentals’. 14 individual beds were set out in the southern bed and planted by the volunteers and Garden Team in late October. The northern bed still had signs of weed growth so this will be left fallow for another year and be planted in the autumn.
Some of the money raised by the sale of chutneys and jams has been used to buy plants but many were donated. A big thank you to the following companies and people for their generosity:
Herbal Haven who donated and supplied plants
Plants Great Bardfield who supplied plants at a trade price
Beeches Nursery, Ashton, now sadly closed, who donated trays of herbs in their closing down sale
Chris Kelman, who was clearing the herb garden from her allotment and who donated over half the plants
Our volunteers, who not only planted but also contributed plants
Nearly 200 plants were planted including, rosemary, king’s spears, bay, lavender, salad burnet, thyme, oregano, chives, ice plant, musk mallow, pineapple sage, sweet cicely, sage, mint and marjoram. It does not look much yet, but once the plants start growing we will post some photos.
It is rewarding when a plan comes together and hopefully more produce from the Garden can be used by local chefs and producers in the future. They make especially thoughtful, local and sustainable gifts - so watch this space!
