Festival date for Garden Gorilla

Tony Carroll, founder of the Sheffield-based Garden Gorilla organisation, aims to grow food just about anywhere he can.

Mr Carroll said: “Garden Gorilla originally came about because of the long waiting list for allotments. We started growing food in any old land – I can’t tell you where though because by nature they are unofficial.

“We’re now creating instant allotments free for schools, on vacant land, and in community spaces.

“We don’t talk about doing things, we just do them, and there is obviously a huge market out there for these as we are oversubscribed at the moment with requests, particularly from schools.

“We have now recruited a group of people from a diverse range of backgrounds and have a network of growers throughout Yorkshire and Humber.”

Garden Gorilla will be holding growing classes at this year’s Sheffield Food Festival, which is expected to attract around 40,000 visitors to the city between Monday, July 4, and Sunday, July 10.

Other events at the festival include a city centre farmyard complete with DIY milking parlour, pop-up restaurants and community picnics in the city’s parks.

Eddie Andrew from the Our Cow Molly ice cream company will be bringing one of his dairy cows and two calves into Sheffield city centre for the event.

He said: “We want people to be able to see for themselves how their food is produced. We will be bringing the actual cow Molly into the city centre and doing ice-cream making demonstrations with liquid nitrogen. Because of the very small ice crystals it produces, we know it makes exceptional quality ice cream.

“We are also very excited about the section of the festival market dedicated to food grown and produced in Sheffield itself.”