About The Farm
Founder and owner Alex Horne established The Essex Allotment in 2018. Inspired by his grandfather’s love of gardening/growing and influenced by his mother’s creativity through floral art, Alex acquired his first Allotment in the spring of 2017.
Prior to this Alex spent 14 years at supermarket giant Tesco and a year at Cancer Research UK before making a life changing decision to quit the corporate, commercial world and pursue a vision of creating a market garden business based on the principles of regenerative agriculture.
Our Journey So Far.
Alex and the Allotment.
Alex used his first three years at the Allotment to nurture his skills, experiment with growing techniques and heavily research into best regenerative agriculture practices around the world. This led in the late summer of 2020 to the leasing of several acres of farmland to establish the Essex Allotment Farm.
Applying the researched regenerative agriculture techniques and his early Allotment lessons, Alex set forth on a journey to create a best in class fully organic vegetable market garden business. The farm has been prepared from late summer 2020 in readiness for a very busy vegetable season in 2021.
Key to the preparation has been the constant nurturing of the land’s soil. The land had been ploughed for many years, therefore the first task was to reintroduce plants, microbes, insects and other natural inhabitants in order to add add nutrients to the soil structure.
The soil is developing well and the land is ready to provide the local population with acres of fully organic vegetables from spring 2021.
The Vegetable Box Service.
A trial vegetable box service was run in the summer of 2020 using vegetables from the Alex’s parents‘ land and more latterly the farm. This has led to the creation of a more comprehensive CSA vegetable box service for 2021.
Customers can enjoy locally produced, vegetables, free from chemicals and pesticides throughout the summer season.
The season will typically last from June to October and customers are able to collect vegetable boxes weekly from local collection points across Essex. Payments are all made Online and there are a variety of subscription options from one week to a full 22 week season. All customers are required to do is collect their vegetable boxes from one of the collection points.
Education Days
One of the great advantages of being part of a locally produced vegetable box service is that customers can enjoy a direct experience of the farm and a relationship with the grower.
Coming soon to The Essex Allotment Farm will be Education Days where attendees can experience first hand the operation of a market garden business. Learn how to ‘grow your own’ and get your hands dirty through this participative and ultimately rewarding day.
“For me it’s been a game changer, I love every minute.”
Volunteers
The Essex Allotment Farm offers opportunities for volunteers, where members can come to the farm and help with soil preparation, growing, harvesting and much more. This is a very hands on learning experience for people who are enthusiastic about growing fruit and vegetables or who simply want to be part of a very exciting journey, as The Essex Allotment transforms from a local Allotment to a fully functioning market garden business. You can scroll through our calendar for upcoming volunteer days and click on them to read more about that specific day. Click the button below to see a listed view of all upcoming events.
