Our annual celebration of all things Squash this year falls on Bealtaine Eve so that means seed planting and dancing…as well as eating, chatting and gathering around the fire to mark the start of summer!
Bealtaine is the next point of the 8-Fold year, sitting half-way between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice, marking the beginning of summer! Free / by donation.
At lunchtime and in the evening, join in Maypole dancing in the garden and on the street! No experience necessary, just enthusiasm for this traditional fertility folk dance around the Squash mini-Maypole with live music from local band Kaloco (evening set).
12-2pm at the Grapes Community Garden
garden Maypole with Willy on the squeezebox
plant many varieties of squash seeds and seedlings
add to the communal altar
make a headdress
enjoy fresh-picked herb tea & spring foods
6-8pm at Squash
street Maypole with Kaloco band
gather around the Bealtaine fire
street drawing
delicious spring menu available in the cafe
SPRING EQUINOX AT SQUASH
THURSDAY 20TH TO SATURDAY 22ND MARCH 2025
JOIN US TO FIND YOUR SPRING BALANCE THIS SPRING EQUINOX!
THURSDAY 20TH IFTAR DINNER & FUNDRAISER 6-8PM
In this time of Ramadan, come and break your fast and enjoy delicious food with us. Everyone is welcome whether fasting or not, and all food and drinks are free. Bring sweet treats to share! Prayer space available. Fundraiser for Habibti Liverpool and ‘Soup it Forward’. More info here
FRIDAY 21ST FAMILY SEED-SOWING 2-4PM
Come by and plant up some seeds and seedlings for spring, and take some with you to love at home.
SATURDAY 22ND STREET ART & MICROFARM INTRODUCTIONS 12-3PM
We’re playing out on Windsor Street on Saturday! Come and find us outside Squash for some pavement drawing, chats, spring tasters and more info about the upcoming Micro Farm project!
IFTAR FUNDRAISER
Thursday 20th March 6-8pm
In this time of Ramadan, come and break your fast and enjoy delicious food with us. There will be dates and water to break fast and prayer space available plus dhal, rice & pakoras. Everyone is welcome whether fasting or not. Bring sweet treats to share!
All food is free of charge / by donation. Any funds raised will be shared between Habibti Liverpool – the amazing local women who raise awareness and resources for Al Sabeen Children’s Hospital in Sanaa, Yemen and Squash’s own ‘Soup-it-Forward’ initiative. If you can’t make it along on Thursday, but would like to donate, please give direct to Habibti here or Squash here.
SEED SWAP & SHARE
SATURDAY 22ND FEBRUARY 11AM-2PM
DROP IN / FREE / BY DONATION
‘Seed is not just the source of life. It is the very foundation of our being.’ -Vandana Shiva, environmental activist and global seed sovereignty advocate.
Our annual seed share is a really important event in the growing year and is the only one of its kind in Merseyside. At Squash, we’re passionate about seed-saving & sharing and have been building the Toxteth Seed Library since 2010 – a fundamental element of our 100 Year Vision for Windsor Street and L8 neighbourhood. Come and meet the Squash gardeners, who are the seed keepers and caretakers of this great legacy.
Every year, seasoned growers and budding beginners join us from across the city region with a shared passion and excitement for the great potential of the simple seed. Come along to pick up some free seeds to grow this spring and if you can, bring seeds you’ve saved to share. Our seed stock is abundant with many varieties of vegetables, herbs & salad with some flowers & wildflowers, nurtured organically with love on Windsor Street.
There’ll also be mindful crafting and art-making with seeds, lead by local crafters and gardeners.
IMBOLC
SATURDAY 1ST FEBRUARY
11AM-1PM AT SQUASH, 1PM WALK TO THE SPRING
DROP IN / FREE / BY DONATION*
Please note that this is a gentle drop-in with various shared community crafting activities as oppose to full workshops. Space is limited. Come and learn and share your knowledge!
Come by and help celebrate Imbolc, the Irish/Celtic/Gaelic marking of the coming of spring and the first festival of the 8-fold year of 2025. Traditional foods associated with Imbolc are dairy* inc. milk, butter & cheese and grains/bread and will feature at this year’s Imbolc celebration. Help make fresh butter and taste our Squash-made sourdough!
For our gentle annual celebration, we also invite you to join local gardeners, artists & cooks to;
reflect together around the fire about winter challenges and hope for the coming spring
help make Brigid crosses with locally grown reeds
plant up onions, garlic and broad beans; some of the earliest veg we can sow in the year
bless the gardens of the street and look ahead to the growing year
draw & write spring affirmations and share rituals at the altar
taste fire cider, made at the Winter Solstice
listen to early spring music
At 1pm we’ll walk together down to bless the spring in the cathedral/St.James gardens; which is known to some as ‘Bridey’s well’ after Imbolc goddess Brigid.
Imbolc, in the Celtic seasonal calendar marks the beginning of the lambing season and signals the start of spring and the stirrings of new life. It is time for us to let go of the past and look to the future, cleansing out the old, making both outer and inner space for new beginnings. It is a good time for wish-making or making a dedication.– The Goddess & The Green Man.
The wheel has turned once more, returning us to a time of hope and new beginnings. Be thankful for the ever-increasing warmth and light as we leave behind the cold, dark, stillness of winter. – Almanac, Anne Marie Lagram.
In between the middle of the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox lies the Celtic festival of Imbolc. Dating back to pre-Christian times, Imbolc celebrations revolved around the Goddess Brigid. Ancient Celtic mythology explains that she was born with a flame in her head and immediately drank the milk* of a mystical cow upon birth, which is where her common symbols of a flame and dairy originated from. She also represents fertility, and many women would travel to her sacred wells (the most popular one in Kildare, Ireland) to drink their water in hopes of conceiving shortly after. During Imbolc celebrations, those celebrating would light bonfires and make dairy-rich meals in honor of Brigid.
Now, Imbolc coincides with Saint Brigid’s feast day. Historians have shown that when Christianity was spreading throughout Ireland, the church was having a difficult time convincing pagans to let go of their gods and goddesses. Thus, Brigid was “reborn” into Saint Brigid, and her representations (i.e., fertility, the flame, and dairy farmers) were kept the same. – Marisa, Herbstalk
SUPPORT OUR CROWDFUNDER! DEADLINE 24TH FEBRURY 2025!
We want grow a small-scale, high-yield, sustainably-minded urban ‘micro farm’ on Windsor Street to increase fresh produce and food growing skills to improve our community’s health, wealth & happiness!
In order to support us, please FOLLOW THIS LINK OVER ON SPACEHIVE You will be asked to sign up to the Spacehive platform and do a 2-part security log-in. From £1 up to whatever you can afford would be amazing or please just offer a ‘like’ or a ‘follow’. Thankyou!
For over a decade we’ve worked to make Windsor Street into a vibrant urban food place inc. a community-designed therapeutic garden, seed library & eco-building housing a community food shop & vegetarian cafe. We’d now like to increase the food-growing space on Windsor Street and provide more opportunities for local people to train in urban agriculture.
100 Year Street News is a collaborative publication to keep the fires of hope and possibility lit on Windsor Street. Within these pages, you will find artworks, poems and pieces of hope from our network of associate artists, cooks, gardeners and community members who came along to last year’s Autumn Equinox celebration in September. This paper exists to remind us where we’ve been, to build our shared narratives together, and to dream of what’s to come. Read it here!
The 100 Year Street began on Windsor Street in Liverpool L8 with the planting of apple trees in 2010 in our Community Food Garden.
These apple trees, like humans, if well cared for, can live for 100 years, and that is just what we at Squash want to see. We mark each calendar with 8-Fold Year celebrations rooted in Celtic and global traditions that connect us through land-based rituals and encourage neighbours and collaborators to stay grounded in the present while growing towards the future.
While political leaders turn over election cycles and the seasons change on annual rotation, our lives unfold with a flurry of activity, often taking us out of the present to what fire needs to be put out first. It is often the urgency of our daily lives and the times we are living in that prevent us from long-term thinking and building the world we want to live in. We all must be called to the greatest crises of our time; the deep inequality of our species and the collapse of our shared home, planet Earth.
Climate change is here, but how we adapt to it, how we build a more just world with our neighbours and how we create the relationships we can rely on, no matter the storms that come, requires tender collaboration and care. By tending to our street, our gardens and our communities throughout the year, we set into motion the network of care that can hold us. The Earth transforms in the seasons. How can we begin to transform our neighbourhoods as well?
Our 100 year street vision is a framework and an invitation to
connect joined up action
explore future thinking
create space for possibility
to affirm long-term commitment
imagine beyond our lifetimes
Over the last decade or so, Squash has created a space where belonging sits at the center of our work. From artist workshops to free soup, from plant knowledge to solidarity fundraisers, we are attempting to build the kind of relationships that people & places need most. How would our neighbourhoods, cities and countries transform if we began to put long-term thinking at the heart of how we come together, what we decide and what we make happen?
100 Year Street News Project By Designer Corbin LaMont & Social Artist & Squash Co-DirectorClare Owens
SHOP OPEN 10AM-4PM WEDNESDAYS – SUNDAYS AND THURSDAYS 6-8PM 12TH & 19TH DECEMBER
Come and check out our festive winter produce! We’ve lots of carefully chosen cupboard staples, plus our own Squash-made preserves, cream cheese, hummus and our famous turmeric tonic! Our brilliant seasonal, organic fruit and veg comes from Organic North* There’s also great products including Palestinian producers Zaytoun, rainbow candles from Moorlands, beautiful Landworkers Alliance calendars & incredible locally made Table chocolate
CHECK BELOW FOR FESTOVE ESSENTIALS AND GIFT IDEAS!
This festive season, if you can, please make a donation to our ‘Soup-it-Forward’ or ‘Box-it-Forward social food schemes here. We supply free veg boxes all year round to refugees & asylum seekers through Family Refugee Support Project and serve over 1200 free bowls of soup to neighbours in need in the Squash cafe.
* Our pals at Organic North are members-run co-operative, the largest and longest-established wholesalers of certified organic produce in the north who like us are on a mission to help mend our broken, wasteful and polluting food system.
SOLIDARITY CHRISTMAS DAY
WEDNESDAY 25TH DECEMBER 12 NOON – 3PM
FREE / BY DONATION / FUNDRAISER
Everyone is welcome to our sixth annual Christmas Day opening! Come along to enjoy tasty, festive food, delicious hot drinks and treats in the Squash cafe! DJ Sprouts is back from a world tour and will be playing some top festive tunes, so if you fancy – come and have little boogie with our volunteer team!
If you or someone you know would like to come, whether for half an hour or the whole afternoon, we’re really looking forward to seeing you. And please spread the word!
On this years Christmas Day (& Winter Solstice) we stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Yemen. Any funds raised on the day will be shared between Medical Aid for Palestinians, our beloved partner Habibti Liverpool – the amazing local women who raise awareness and resources for Al Sabeen Children’s Hospital in Sanaa, Yemen and Squash’s own ‘Soup-it-Forward’ initiative. If you can’t make it along on the day, but would like to donate, please give direct through the links above or via Squash and we will share.
It’ll be cosy in the cafe and there will be a fire outside so please wrap up warm! Bring your hat, scarf and if it’s extra chilly, we’ve got a few blankets! There will be options for take-away available. Please note we are an alcohol-free space.
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from us all at Squash!
WINTER WARMER THURSDAYS!
December 5th, 12th & 19th 6-8PM
Come by Squash on Thursday evenings in the run up to Christmas and enjoy a lovely, cosy time! There’ll be a fire, very tasty food in the cafe, great company and a chance to support your local community biz by doing a bit of ethical festive shopping! We’ll have exclusives on offer like special hot Fire Cider (non-alcoholic) & fresh mistletoe in the shop!
DECEMBER 5TH
Come and listen to some soothing festive sounds courtesy of DJ Campechano Jones, nibble on festive tasters, and order your Christmas veg box! Meet our new shopkeeper Jordan who’s excited to tell you all about our winter stock! And it’s World Soil Day – so we’ll be talking compost, dirty carrots and worms!
DECEMBER 12TH
All the Winter Warmer vibes, plus it’s our Annual General Meeting (from 5-6pm) so if you fancy getting to know more about Squash and even becoming a member, please email admin@squashliverpool.co.uk for more info
DECEMBER 19TH
We’ll be getting properly festive in the run up to Winter Solstice & Christmas Day so come down for a cosy evening with seasonal songs around the fire by Hope Street Harmonies Choir and delicious festive tastes!
