Thatcham gets a taste of incredible edible action

Edible Thatcham, which aims to promote community, education and business, had its official launch at Thatcham Baptist Church on Sunday.
Jason Collis, who set up Edible Thatcham, is also a trustee at West Berkshire foodbank and said that Edible Thatcham seemed to be a natural extension of that.
He said that Edible Thatcham had been inspired by the Incredible Edible Movement which started in Todmorden in Yorkshire.
He said: “There are over 200 Edible movements around the world. We are taking a simple idea and bringing it to Thatcham.”
The idea of Edible Thatcham is to encourage local people to get together and grow food.
Some of the ideas that Edible Thatcham has so far put into its action plan include – finding unused areas of land and using it for public planting, putting free access raised beds in the local area, adapting the planting already done in the area, plant community herb gardens, plant community raised beds, map local fruit trees to make sure fruit is collected and used and to link closely with the new community orchard, based at the Nature Discovery Centre.
Mr Collis said that this could even include replacing prickly bushes outside doctor’s surgeries with fruit bushes.
He said: “We also want to encourage young people to identify where their food comes from.
“Although we live in a rural area, a lot of our young people don’t know what farms look like and what it takes to grow food.
“We want to encourage growing as well as cooking because people feel different about eating a meal with food they have grown themselves.
“One of the simple things we want is to have a map of where there are already fruit trees / bushes and when these are ready for harvest.”
Mr Collis said that the big aim was to make a difference in the town and said: “We are hoping to take over some of the raised beds in Thatcham town centre and we are hoping next year to do a harvest festival where people will come together.
“Everybody has to eat and everybody can help in terms of growing – there’s no barrier for the entry of this.”
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