John Avison: Norah Hamill and Incredible Edible’s Dig For Victory

Sep 24 2009 by John Avison, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

John Avison: Norah Hamill and Incredible Edible’s Dig For Victory

HERE it comes, the time poet John Keats loved so much.

He called autumn the ‘season of mists and mellow fruitfulness’, and anybody who owns a garden, a greenhouse and/or an allotment knows just what he means.

Incredible Edible, a loose confederation of mucky-nailed, horny-handed sons – and daughters – of toil, is delighted. This is what it’s all about: trugs of beetroot, heavy-boughed apple and plum trees, jam and chutney by the ton, the soil banged off potatoes and garlic, Jerusalem artichoke and onion, bags of shelled peas.

Incredible Edible started in Todmorden, the brainchild of two women, Pam Warhurst and Mary Clear. It came to Huddersfield through Norah Hamill, a native of West Belfast, formerly of Todmorden and now of the Holme Valley, and Sue Daws.

Incredible Edible wants to save the planet, and it has a plan.

“We’re a kind of dating agency,” said Norah. “We put people in touch with each other so they can exchange ideas, seeds, fruit and vegetables. We are guerrilla gardeners.”

So if I decide to grow cabbages around a war memorial or bus stop or teach my neighbours how to compost household waste and ‘humanure’ (you would be as well not asking), I could tell Incredible Edible and that would make it an Incredible Edible project.

Kath and Trevor Bettany of Holmbridge are converts.

“We grow our own produce in boxes and containers and we use most of this at our guesthouse and tea rooms,” said Kath.

They’ve grown two dozen different vegetables and fruits in containers and from plants supplied by Norah.

It comes back, too. Tony Walls from the Tenants’ and Residents Group of Holmclose, Holmbridge, has donated some of his harvest of beetroot to Incredible Edible, who then delivered the beetroot for pickling to Bob and Anne Thorpe from the Country Markets, Holmfirth.

The group’s treasurer, Sarah Crabtree, said: “This is a great way to combat the recession and I think everyone should be doing it.”