Hemel Food Garden

Hemel Food Garden (HFG) offers training and employment for people with learning disabilities within a social enterprise setting. The team grow and sell fresh produce such as fruit, vegetables and salads. They also engage in poultry and bee keeping, PAT testing, gardening design and maintenance, allotment makeovers, and growing and selling a wide range of plants. A significant focus is the large bedding contract we hold with Dacorum Borough Council to grow 90,000 plants.

We have a farm shop at HFG (open Mon to Sat 10 until 3pm) where we sell Sunnyside produce (fresh eggs, honey, jam and vegetables). It champions local food and promotes local organic and fair-trade food. We also have a range of zero waste and plastic free products.

Adjacent to the farm shop is our Sunnyside Up café. The café has a relaxing atmosphere and is situated in a sunny spot, making the seating area in the garden a popular destination for passers-by along the canal. The café provides our trainees the opportunity to learn all the skills required to run a café, such as customer service, handling money, barista, cooking and stock control.

Hemel Food Garden is also where we grow our range of perennial plants and these are available to buy when the Sunnyside Up cafe and farm shop are open. Monday to Saturday, 10 to 3pm.

HFG is a Green Flag award winning site that’s different to other day services: we believe that everyone should be given the opportunity to work and develop. The team spends valuable time working with individuals to find their strengths and training them up to increase their choice of employment.

In an emergency, outside of our usual hours of 8am-4pm, please contact Ann Kerr on 07534 267142

Hire a venue  (Currently only the greenhouse is available to hire)

If you are looking for somewhere to hold an event against a relaxed, rural setting, we may be able to help. We have two summerhouses: one at Hemel Food Garden which is set amongst our tranquillity gardens, and the other at Northchurch next to an orchard. Our cosy Sunnyside Up café at Hemel Food Garden is also a popular place for hire. All three venues are ideal for informal meetings and somewhere to go for creative sessions, children’s parties, team building days, yoga classes and BBQs.