Guernsey and the Hedge Veg

The rise of organic or “local food” shopping may have exploded into our supermarkets but buying local is not a new concept here in Guernsey, we have been doing it for decades via our hedge veg stalls!

But what is “hedge veg” ?
They are quintessentially Guernsey. Small handmade wooden boxes perched on the hedges around the islands roads filled with fruit, veg, flowers and eggs. Islanders and visitors to Guernsey can park up and buy a selection of local products by leaving cash in home-made honesty boxes.

In the summer months, boxes are overflowing with the rich bounty from the island’s fields and gardens.

Growers who produce in large commercial greenhouses down to keen green-fingered enthusiasts who have a patch in their back garden all get involved in the tradition of putting out their surplus for sale on the hedge.

These makeshift stalls are pure Guernsey and there is never a shortage of stock.

Tomatoes, carrots and lettuce, cucumbers, beans and potatoes, you name it and you can probably find it on a hedge somewhere around the island.

But it’s not just vegetables we like to put out on the hedge, there are locally grown flowers including roses, carnations and freesias, you can often pick up some eggs, and if you swing by the crab cabin, a lovely chancre too.

We Guerns love nothing more than browsing the hedgerows of the island’s rural parishes ­– and this often involves some nifty parking, and the odd emergency stop.

If you’re lucky there will be fair warning of what is in the box with ‘pots’ or ‘toms’ hastily scrawled on the side. If not it’s a quick stop and reverse up the road or a drive-by and stop on the way back.

Money is left for purchases in a small tin, box or in some cases old milk churn and hedge veg would not be the thriving cottage industry it is if there was no trust.

It relies solely on people being honest and seems to work.

Local growers

Dave Gorvel was brought up in a family of farmers and growers. He worked in the family business as a grower for 40 years before launching an allotment scheme in 2006.

‘My grandfather used to sell produce, such as eggs and Bramley apples from the orchard, at his farm gate back in the 1920s,’ said Dave.

His grandparents were largely self-sufficient and made everything from butter to cider.

‘A lot of what they grew was sold at the Saturday market in town. In those days the farmers went down and set up, had a chat and bartered with others or their food,’ he said.

Dave Gorvel

Dave said hedge veg really took off in the 1960s when boxes were made and put out – something that is currently seeing a resurgence among a new generation of smallholders in the island.

Guernsey people are nicknamed donkeys because of their stubborn nature and that certainly seems to be the case when it comes to being self-sufficient.

Greenhouse hedge veg

Zoe Ash practically grew up in her greenhouse in a sleepy valley in St Andrew’s. Her grandparent were freesia growers, exporting blooms to the UK, and, at the age of around six, was charged with the important job of looking after the families hedge veg stall at the top of the drive.

Zoe Ash ©Richard Lord

‘The freesias with wiggly stems couldn’t be sent away so they were bunched and put out on the roadside for sale for 25p,’ she said.

Her grandfather made the green wooden and corrugated plastic stand and there was a small tin for people to leave money.

‘It was beyond exciting heading up the drive and finding the bucket empty and the tin full,’ she said.

Zoe can still remember the heat of the  greenhouse in August and the smell of the fresh   cut flowers as they had wet cotton wool wrapped around the bottom of their stems, secured with a tiny elastic band.

She now has a greenhouse with her family and    sells the excess produce.

‘I must have been bitten by the hedge veg bug    back then, it just took me a while to realise,’ she  said.

Have you visited Guernsey? What was the last thing you purchased from a hedge veg?

Don’t forget to snap your hedge veg purchases when you visit Guernsey and send them to us- we would love to see them. Share them on our Facebook page or leave a comment below.