Sunday in E2 is a lesson in seasonal planting, delivered at volume by men with buckets and opinions
Bunches, Buckets and the Sunday Shout
If you want to see commerce at its purest, go to Columbia Road at eight on a Sunday morning. A man with a bucket stands on a box and bellows the price of tulips as if announcing a death in the family. Nobody blinks. Behind him a woman in a very good coat is bargaining over a fern with a seriousness normally reserved for arms control. The market’s own details are at columbiaroad.info, and I suggest you read them before you attend, as the crowd does not forgive indecision.
I have lived in Shoreditch long enough to know that every plant in this market has a story. Most of them are about how it came from a farm, travelled overnight in a van, and ended up on a pavement in E2 under the supervision of a trader called Terry. I decided to follow the thread back to the field, and what I found was a world that makes the market look like a very loud postscript.
Everything Begins in the Calendar
Every flower you buy on a Sunday has followed an order that was settled long before the market opened. Seeds go in at the right time, bulbs come out at the right time and nothing happens because a trend says it should. The crop calendar is the clearest explanation I have found. It is a small masterpiece of patience, and it would be a better guide to Shoreditch trends than any glossy magazine, which keeps announcing that spring is back as though it had been away on holiday.
The trouble with the average Londoner is that he treats the seasons as a lifestyle choice. The farmer treats them as an employer. One rises at dawn because the daffodils have demands. The other rises at dawn because his neighbour is drilling.
The Balcony Smallholder
Shoreditch is full of people who want to grow something. They have a windowsill, a watering can and a podcast on gardening. For these brave souls, small farm information and rural farm are excellent resources, offering sensible advice with none of the lifestyle patter. The difference between a gardener and a farmer is that the farmer is aware of the bill.
My own balcony currently holds two pots of herbs, a geranium I inherited and a plant that was a gift and which I have named Regret. It is thriving, which tells you something about plants and something about me.
The Equipment Behind the Bouquet
Beyond the market stalls lies a world of machinery. Fields do not cultivate themselves, and the sort of kit used to turn soil and bring in a crop is explained in the tractor equipment guide. I admit I read it on the Overground and drew some looks. A woman across the aisle asked if I was planning a career change. I said I was planning a very large plant pot.
For a wider survey of the farming world, from crops to creatures, agriculture news and guides is a convenient door. It will tell you where the daffodils came from and why the van was late.
Trade Secrets of the Stallholder
Spend enough time on Columbia Road and you learn the tricks. The trader who shouts loudest has the worst plants. The trader who whispers has a queue. The man with the best geraniums is always the one who pretends not to be selling. And the price you are told is always the price he intended to give you, with a small deduction for your face.
These are the arts of commerce, and they are the same on a farm. At farm.FM the farm desk once reported that families will pay 150 dollars for a photo beside a tractor that does not run. If Terry knew about that, he would be selling photo packages beside the hydrangeas by lunchtime.
A Local Word on Safety and Respect
I should say that farming, behind the pretty stalls, is a hard and sometimes dangerous trade. Farm safety is the right place to start if you want to understand the work that sits behind every petal. Nobody picks the flowers you buy for fun, and the wage rarely matches the early start.
It is also worth remembering that your flower money does a job. When a Londoner pays five pounds for a bunch of tulips, a chain of people from the field to the pavement takes a share, and each of them deserves a decent share. The Sunday shout is the happiest end of a very long day.
The Neighbourhood Angle
Shoreditch is changing, as it always has. The warehouses are flats, the factories are galleries and the pie shop is now an ethical pie concept. But on Sunday mornings, for two bright hours, the old London survives, and it is loud, damp and very good value. The London Prat keeps a record of this sort of local pageantry in its pages on London humour, which I would call the area’s unofficial guidebook.
Five Things I Noticed Between the Stalls
- A man who shouts the price of a plant has already made up his mind about you.
- The cactus is the only gift that says I care but not much.
- If the van arrives late, the daffodils will be offended.
- Every Shoreditch flat has one plant that is slowly winning an argument with its owner.
- Nobody has ever left Columbia Road with only the one plant they came for.
The Last Bucket
I carried a fern home on the bus, held upright like a baby in a christening, and a stranger smiled at me. It was the nicest thing that had happened all week. If you want more local colour with a sharper edge, visit Bohiney, The London Prat and farm.FM. They sell humour by the bunch and do not ask for a loyalty card.
For a bonus bloom of nonsense, try NewsBiscuit.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/