A Peckham meadery will be planting sunflowers around their neighbourhood to help sustain the local bee population this weekend.
Gosnells Mead Garden will be joined Plastic Free Peckham on their weekend litter pick, planting bee-friendly plants on the abandoned grass patches being cleared of rubbish, today (Saturday May 21).
In celebration of World Bee Day, which was on Friday May 20, the mead-makers gave sunflower seeds to local people in the hope of creating an army of “guerrilla gardeners”.
Gosnells Mead Garden, a bar and brewery on Bellenden Road, rely on bees because their product is brewed using honey.
Peckham-born Tom Gosnell, the 34-year-old bar founder said: “We want to make sure we have an impact in the local area so we’ve been getting people to replant their gardens to make them a bit more bee-friendly.
“This Saturday will be a family friendly day and we’re hoping for nice, sunny weather so it’ll be a nice group event. We’re looking to plant things for years to come.”
People can also pop into the meadery and grab some free sunflower seeds to take home if they’re interested in turning their gardens into bee havens.
Tom explained that in recent years, fears have grown that global bee populations are dwindling. In 2019, Dr Lynn Dicks, of the University of East Anglia told the BBC: “Every square kilometre in the UK has lost an average of 11 species of bee and hoverfly, between 1980 and 2013.”
Tom said more people in London had been putting hives in their gardens, but that the pollinators need more plants if their populations are to grow.
Gosnells Meadery don’t have their own hives, but source their honey locally and brew their beverages onsite.
Tom said their meads, made using only natural ingredients – water, honey and yeast – are summery drinks.
Their meads include sour mead, hopped mead, hibiscus mead and vintage 2019 mead.
The bar also has a garden which Tom says is a “flowering jungle – an unlikely sight in an industrial estate in Peckham”.
Peckham Free Plastic and Gosnells Meadery set off for their joint litter pick and planting walk at 2pm, Saturday May 21, from Gosnells Mead Garden, Bellenden Road, SE15.