For our next local business owner focus we welcome James Cottle from Leyton based Growing Pains. We caught up with him to talk about his gardening business, where he sells bulbs and home grown plants. We found out what inspired James to start his business and the low down on his first ever pop-up planned on Farmer road this Easter Sunday alongside the Dusty Knuckle van.

LeytonLove:  Hello James! How are you? 

James: Hey guys, I am good thank you all is well. How are you doing all good? 

LL: All good over here, enjoying this heatwave we’re having. We have loved supporting Growing Pains on LeytonLove, tell us a bit about what inspired you to start this new business? 

J: Amazing, thank you for the support you guys have been amazing. Couple of things really, having the time due to lockdown. Also my grandfather, just calling him each Sunday and talking gardening,  and my friends who last summer  kept telling me I should do something with the idea I had for growing pains. 

LL: We love Growing Pain’s logo artwork, who designed that? 

J: All the artworks are courtesy of my good pal Patrick Schmidt … he’s a good egg, we had a day on the beers last summer and we came up with the character ideas and he came back with what you see today… you might recognise the style, he does loads of stuff , including the Yard Sale Pizza graphics. 

LL: I am a bit of a Monty Don fan girl, ha, do you have any gardening heroes? 

J: Ahh Monty, he is quite literally the Don… 

My grandad gave me a Percy Thrower book he brought 60 years ago, that guy wore a three piece suit and smoked a pipe… not your average Alan Titchmarsh polo shirt get up, so I’m putting Percy just behind Monty. 

LL: What are your favourite plants/vegetables to grow? 

J: Agastache and Salvia Amistad are my two favourite plants to grow, and I think potatoes are my favourite veg, just because of the amazing flowers they produce. 

LL: How long have you lived in Leyton? Why did you choose to live here?

J: Two and half years now, we chose it because we wanted to move close to friends. We love it. 

LL: We read that you have been renovating your back garden in Leyton, how did you go about that? Was there a plan or did you just dive in? 

J: Wowzers the back garden was wild… Couldn’t see anything for weeds, again that was Lockdown allowing me the time. At first the plan was the just make it weed free and visible, then my confidence grew and now the idea has evolved to a Piet Oudolf level of garden, but not sure I have the skill to pull it off. 

LL: We’re sure you do! We loved creating our Growing Pains Spotify music take over. Great idea to create mixtapes to garden with. What inspired the mixtapes? Will you be having any more takeovers? 

J: Great to hear, strong playlist by the way !!! I just thought could be a nice way of getting people out in the garden and I’m also a massive fan of collaborating with friends and new people where possible especially collaborating with people who all do different things. This weekend will be Paddy who does all my graphics and next weekend will be another friend Sam O’Malley who’s a buyer for Browns so keeping it as creative as possible. 

LL: Love that, can’t wait to listen. What are your future goals for Growing Pains?  

J: There are a few plates spinning at the moment so a couple of nice things to come, but really it’s just to keep enjoying what I’m doing. People have been amazing and really helped open a few doors, some pop ups to come for sure. 

LL: Leyton has you to thank for the Dusty Knuckle gracing our streets every Sunday on Farmer road, right outside your door! Well done you, we’ve loved supporting it. We heard over Easter you’re planning a plant yard sale in your front garden at the same time. What can our LeytonLovers expect to buy and what time will it start? 

Those guys are great, it’s been great having them around. Yea the yard sale is 11:30am next Sunday from my front garden  opposite the Dusty Knuckle queue. I’m looking forward to it, will be the first indication of how pop ups can go. I’ll mainly be selling vegetable and fruit plants, hydrangea’s , rosemary, potted alliums, tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, thyme, gherkins, strawberries, aubergines, beans, sweat peas, bedding plants etc… and a few wild cards. Might be worth mentioning I’m not organised enough for one of those card machines just yet, so cash or bank transfer it will be. 

Thanks for the Questions guys that was fun, felt like I was on Desert Island Disks for a minute then…  

LL: You are welcome, we loved having you. HA, well now you mention it then, what would be your ultimate desert island song choice? Song not disc to maybe avoid a teeny copyright issue there…

J: Hahah that would have to be Marvin Gaye, Got to give it up!

For our one year anniversary at LeytonLove not only have we just recently launched our website (can I get a whoop whoop?), every month we will be championing a local business owner with a quick Q&A to inspire you to check them out and maybe make a purchase or two.

The first ever post we did on LeytonLove was for MeatLove, based on the High Road, they have become our favourite butcher in the hood. Dritan has kindly offered to answer a few questions for us…

LeytonLove: Hi Dritan, how are you?

Dritain: Hello LeytonLove! I’m good thank you. Thanks for having me on here, or as we say in Albania, Faleminderit.

LL: Where are you from originally?

D: I was born and raised in a small beautiful village north west of Albania, I come from a family of 7, me being the youngest. My father was a proud farmer and my mother would help him from time to time. I grew up in a Communist society, meaning money wasn’t something we took for granted. I was happy living the way I was back home as a young boy. However I moved to the UK for a better life. 

LL: Why did you pick Leyton to have your shop?

D:  Working with animals was a thing I was brought up around, as mentioned before my father was a farmer. Before I opened MeatLove, I was a master butcher in a meat factory. My wife at the time helped me in terms of finding a good place to set up the shop. We wanted a site which was affordable and in a lovely area. I saw how much impact my father had on the locals, I wanted to do something very similar, provide good meat for locals, get peoples breakfast, lunch and dinners ready. My philosophy is ‘only buy as much as you need, eat well and consciously.’ Everything you need should be in walking distance so people can choose fresh weekly food over freezing items. Leyton was introduced to me by a friend and as soon as I visited it I fell in love. I took over a site that used to be a halal butchers and immediately put my own mark and philosophy into the shop, transforming it into MeatLove Butcher. It took time, effort and money but the journey has been worth it. 

LL: What’s your favourite thing about Leyton?

D: The people and the community! Leyton is full of so many beautiful and lovely people from all kinds of backgrounds. You can imagine with MeatLove I meet so many fascinating people popping in from the High Road. The area is changing a lot and gentrification is also a part of it and still Leyton has this special vibe. The support the community has given my shop has been amazing. When I opened the shop it was hard and I struggled, but once word got out we have been overwhelmed by the support, take this Christmas as an example, people were queuing up to two hours to get in! Thank you to all of you who were so patient queuing.

LL:Your shop has been my saviour in lockdown, we are always there! Do you have any local regulars now?

D: My regulars saved me during Covid times. My customers brought home their bacon and helped me take home the bacon too ha ha. I am really proud to have so many regulars.

LL: What’s your goal for the future of your business?

D: I am a creative and open minded man. I could imagine opening a second shop but first I want to develop this shop further. I’m so excited that we have introduced low intervention, natural wines and beers into the shop. We are already so unique, do you know any other butcher who sprinkles your steak with salts and herbs with so much love and care? For the future, I’d love to focus on organic and vegan products and offer good quality homemade food such as breads, sandwiches and baguettes. I’m also thinking about selling takeaway coffee! I can also imagine DJ nights and pop-up parties at MeatLove, let’s see what happens after lockdown.

LL: We know you sell local legend Willy’s Pies in the shop, you supported Will when he started out. What’s your favourite pie flavour?

D: All his pies are amazing but the chicken pie would be my favourite. We actually supply Will with our best herb fed free range chicken for his chicken pies