London’s food-growing schemes offer harvest of fruit, veg and friendship

‘Everything here is about making connections’: Frannie Smith at the Octopus community growing site in Islington, north London. Photograph: Alecsandra Dragoi/The Guardian

Behind a row of local authority maisonettes in Islington, north London, on a sun-drenched Tuesday morning, the air hums with insects. Landing bees bend the stems of a patch of lavender as Peter Louis, 60, clears overgrowth with shears.

“I come here in winter probably once or twice a week; in summer probably about two or three times a week,” he says. Louis lives alone and is out of work because of poor health. But at the project he can meet friends, and even when he doesn’t the work is a salve to his isolation.