Purple Patch market garden is tucked away in a green and wild part of St Werburghs (Bristol) on Boiling Wells Lane, named so for the natural spring which bubbles from the ground next to our site.
The Garden Folk team carefully manages the 1 acre site using methods which improve soil health, biodiversity and the nutritional value of our produce - making it especially tasty!
While not organic-certified, we are deeply committed to organic and regenerative principles and use practices such as no-dig, green manures, agroforestry and provide food and habitats for beneficial insects. We never use pesticides or synthetic fertilisers and use biodegradable packaging.
Read more about the garden, what we’re growing and ways to enjoy the garden and our produce below.
Credit: Hannah Bowler
in the garden
Purple Patch - the land where Garden Folk gathers and grows - is a part of Watercress Farm, a smallholding which has been under cultivation ever since medieval times. Set up by Mary Conway in 2015, Purple Patch in now an established market garden which Alex now manages under the name Garden Folk.
Across the garden we grow a diversity of fruits, vegetables, salad leaves, herbs and flowers.
We enjoy sharing this lovely garden with all folk - people, plants, birds, bugs and all creatures in-between!
We host regular volunteer days every Friday morning and on occasional Saturdays which are wonderful opportunities to get outside and learn about many aspects of regenerative food growing.
We also organise and host free, seasonal events: The Spring Fair, Summer Fair, Harvest Festival and Cow Christmas are all big, joyful celebrations of the garden throughout the wheel of the year.
Another way to enjoy the garden is to visit our lovely friend Candice at her cafe on the lane where you can buy delicious coffee and incredible food made using our produce - straight out of the garden! Chez Candice is usually open Thursdays - Saturdays from 9-3(ish).
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vegetables
The colourful heart of the garden! We grow a diversity of beautiful and delicious vegetables throughout the growing season and are always experimenting with different varieties of crops to find the best flavours, colours and characters.
As members of our Harvest Share, our customers receive a freshly picked portion of vegetables (often a bountiful one) throughout the growing season. This isn’t an average veg-box and doesn’t include potatoes, carrots and onions every week but instead we provide a varied share of our best seasonal produce. This may include:
Beetroot, chard, spinach, kale, kohl rabi, squash, heritage tomatoes (from our own saved seed), broad beans, runner beans, french beans, peas, cucumbers, courgettes, leeks, garlic, parsnips, herbs, spring onions, cabbage, turnips and radishes. We also have a little bit of fruit on site such as apples, grapes and soft fruit and we share these with our members too!
The climate for growing vegetables is becoming ever more challenging and we have therefore adopted a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model to sell the majority of our produce.
The CSA model offers a fairer system for food growers and a greater connection to land a food for members in an agreement based on trust, solidarity and the sharing of abundance and adversity.
Our CSA members are an integral part of Garden Folk and by committing to a season of Harvest Shares they help our garden and community to flourish. We invite our members to farm walks and feedback sessions where they get to know us and the lovely piece of land that their food comes from.
If you’re interested in becoming a member you can find out more about how it all works via the sign up link below.
Flowers
The joyful stars of the garden! Our seasonal blooms are a delight for us to grow and they provide our customers with vibrant, local and chemical-free alternatives to supermarket flowers.
Spring brings with it a lovely show of tulips, daffodils, Iris, hardy annuals and biennials. Summer favourites are a riot of dahlias, cosmos, sunflowers, zinnias, snapdragons, cornflowers and ammi. From November we have dried flowers and Christmas wreathes available to order.
We grow all our flowers using organic and regenerative methods Choosing our flowers allows us to grow beautiful blooms while making space for nature and wildlife. As part of caring for our hedgerows we are also introducing additional native trees and shrubs which can be used for seasonal foliage.
We sell our flowers as big bunches, posies and floristry buckets.
As a real treat you can sign up for weekly seasonal blooms for you or a loved one with our Month of Flowers subscription. These will be available to collect from Purple Patch along with your salad or veg box every Wednesday from 3pm.
You can also pick up posies from Chez Candice from Thursdays to Saturdays alongside Candice’s delicious food and coffee. Check her instagram for times!
Please email us at gardenfolkcic@gmail.com to enquire about floristry buckets.
Find out more about ordering flowers via the link below!
salad
Not your average bag of leaves! Our salad is a vibrant mix of lettuces, mustards, edible flowers and diverse range of other plants and herbs which together create a beautiful and flavourful addition to any meal.
Our salad changes throughout the season with more mustards, claytonia, chervil and hardy lettuces in the winter and exciting things like buckshorn plantain, Korean mint, dill and purslane in the summer.
Credit: Hannah Bowler
We sell our salad through our Salad CSA subscription where our customers receive a healthy 200g portion of salad each week.
Salad can be picked up on foot or by bike from our veg shed from Wednesday afternoons or if you are very local and live between Purple Patch and the tunnel on Mina Road, we can deliver your salad to you by bicycle.