The World’s Biggest Spade

Picture from the Surrey Comet

Interesting photo opportunities are always popular with politicians. Snaps of them kissing babies and standing alongside major celebrities are always a major vote winner. So, it’s no surprise that in a Mayoral election year, Boris agreed to this latest photo opportunity alongside the World’s Biggest Spade.

Bozza and chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee Seb Coe visited Sutton Community Farm this week to launch the Big Dig volunteer gardening weekend. It seems that the plan is for the Olympic to leave a lasting legacy to Londoners who want to grow their own courgettes [Are you sure about this? – Boriswatch Ed]

Boris and Lord Coe took a tour of the farm in Wallington which is London’s only community farm. They demonstrated the benefits of urban food growing, packed vegetable boxes [Not a euphemism – Boriswatch Ed] and had pictures with the record breaking 3.6m high spade.

Bozza said: “It’s excellent, who’d have thought we were here in London – it is testimony to what Sutton does.

“In this historic Olympic year, we are challenging Londoners to create a fantastic crop of new food growing gardens at the heart of their communities.

“Tens of thousands of people have helped us brighten up London in this way, cultivating carrots in Croydon, beetroot in Barnet and lettuce in Lewisham.

“We now want to inspire even more green fingered folk to grab their wellies and have a go.

“The Big Dig is all about making it easy to find out more.”

The Big Dig weekend will be held on Saturday 16 and Sunday 17 March and will involve community food gardens opening their doors to those who want to get involved. The campaign supports Capital Growth, a scheme to create 2,012 community food growing spaces by the end of the Olympic year.

Forget the legacy of winning lots of gold medals and kids taking up sport in the capital, eh? As long as we have a good spinach crop in 2013, the Olympics will have been worthwhile.