Thursday 4, August 2011

Issue 4 August 2011

Time flies when you're growing food! We hope you're all enjoying the summer, and have been harvesting the fruits of your hard work. We also want to say a warm hello to the latest Spice It Up recruits who graduated from the recent course held at the Chisenhale Arts Space's Art of Growing Club.

We're going to publish some photos of your produce in the autumn newsletter, so don't be shy...send them in to foodnetwork@wen.org.uk. The best photo gets a free WEN bag and mug - who could resist?

Free Wild Food Tour - September Spice It Up outing

Many fruits, nuts, seeds, and herbs which grow freely around London are safe to eat, but we often don't know how to recognise them and tell them apart from inedible plants. The next Spice It Up outing on Monday September 12 will show you how to spot the good plants, what they can be used for and give you a chance to taste and cook some. WEN has arranged a wild food tour at Tower Hamlets Cemetery Park, a 33-acre nature reserve containing broad leaf woodland, meadows and a wide range of plants and wildlife. 23 species of butterfly and over 60 bird species have been found there. Bring lunch to share and a container for your wild foods. Email foodnetwork@wen.org.uk to book your place.

Save the Date: October 13 Autumn Gathering of Tower Hamlets Food Growing Network

This event promises to be both fun and useful, with workshops on growing non-UK or exotic vegetables,planning new food growing spaces and food sovereignty - who controls the food supply in the UK? Do ordinary people have enough of a say?  A new seed exchange will also be launched and free refreshments provided.  The event runs at St Hilda's East Community Centre, 18 Club Row, E2 7EY, from 10.30 -3pm. Call WEN on 0207 481 9004 for more details or look at our website www.wen.org.uk

Easy harvesting tips

A garden fork is more useful than a spade to prise crops out of the ground, but be careful to avoid damaging them with the prongs. Carrots and parsnips have long roots, so you'll need to push the fork down quite deep to avoid snapping them off. In light soil you can sometimes pull these crops by hand, but loosening the soil first with a fork is a good idea.

A sharp knife is useful to cut leafy crops cleanly, especially those which form a heart or head like lettuces or cabbage. You can pick leaves of crops like spinach by hand, but you run the risk of tugging up the whole plant by the roots if you don't do it carefully.

Pick most fruiting vegetables, like peas, tomatoes and peppers, as they are ready. Always try to remove them cleanly - any portions left on the plant will be prone to disease. When pulling off peas and beans, hold the stem with one hand to make sure you don't loosen the plant in the soil as you pull.

Pick tomatoes with the spidery green calyx still attached. (The calyx is the green stalk and green pointy leaves that stick out the top of the tomato.) Snap the frut away at the knuckle that is found just along the stem. Use any fruits that come away without the calyx first, because they may not keep as long as those with the calyx intact.

Peppers and aubergines don't have a knuckle like tomatoes do, but they should also be picked with a short length of stem attached.

Many leafy vegetables, like kale, salad leaves, Swiss chard and spinach can be grown as cut-and-come again crops. Harvest the plants leaving stumps about 2.5 -5 cm (1-2 inches) high. Fresh leaves will regrow and be ready for picking a few weeks later. In a good season you may be able to get several pickings from the same plants.

Top tip: did you know that after you cut a large head off a cabbage plant, you can harvest more leaves? To do so leave the stalk in the ground and cut a shallow cross in the top. After a few weeks another crop of leafy greens will sprout from each corner of the cut!

Food: what does it mean to you?

WEN is running a short workshop on 8 September, at the 20 Club Row office, around the subject of food and food-growing. We want to chat about the basics of food growing but also explore the deeper feelings around food - how food fits into your childhood memories, your culture, and whether your diet is any different from what your parents ate. It will be a chance to celebrate the role of food in our lives, and also share any problems we might experience in growing it or buying it. For those who are interested, we can offer training in using video cameras. Takes place between 11-1 pm. Places are limited so email foodnetwork@wen.org.uk

Members news: Organiclea trip

Some of you have been very busy over the summer. Sybil has been growing lots of celery in her plot, and Mariam has planted coriander, tomatoes, peas and lettuce on her new bed. The gardening club at OSCA near Mile End Park have successfully planted cabbage, peas, carrots, tomatoes and lettuce, and their newly-moved fruit trees are doing well.

Meanwhile, many of you joined WEN staff on an inspiring Spice It Up outing to Organiclea nursery and food project back in May. We can all learn from the Organiclea example, even if we garden on a much smaller scale. We got a tour of the huge greenhouses, raised beds and their new vineyard, tucked away on the edge of Epping forest. We also shared some gardening jobs; a few brave volunteers prepared a potato bed in the pouring rain, others harvested and trimmed garlic bulbs for sale, and another group potted up seedlings.

Cheap seed saving and preserving courses through Capital Growth

If you are involved in a community plot which hasn't signed up to Capital Growth yet, it's still worth joining. As well as advice and the chance to apply for funding, members get half-price training at a variety of courses which are run at four sites across London.

Capital Growth is running two workshops on seed saving and fruit/veg preserving (jams, chutneys, pickles, herb drying) at its Regents Park site. One is on 21 September at 5.30-8pm and another is on 24 September at 10.30-1pm. For more information and to book email training@capitalgrowth.org or go to www.capitalgrowth.org/training

Fancy a free trip to a beautiful organic farm where you can learn more about growing and cooking veg?

Commonwork, a sustainability project based at a working organic farm in Kent, is offering free one day workshops under its GrowCookEat programme to people who aren't in employment. WEN is considering running a trip to this beautiful site if enough of you are eligible and interested. Lunch and refreshments will be covered. Workshop topics may include how to cook a meal for £1 and fairtrade issues. Please let WEN know if you are eligible and would like to be part of a visit, by emailing us on foodnetwork@wen.org.uk, or telephoning the office on 0207 481 9004.

Food Growing and Health: Capital Growth Networking Event

Earlier in July Capital Growth ran an event at the Urban Physic Garden exploring the role urban food growing plays in improving health. Capital Growth members got in free. Our new food volunteer Glenda Trew was there:

'The small Eden-like garden abounded with plants of a medieval nature, containing comfrey, dandelion and other plants which can heal the body and spirit. Garden enthusiasts met each other and heard stories from other projects around London, including a a project in Bromley where one young man had made a significant recovery from trauma and depression as a result of joining the Capital Growth gardening group. There were several workshops on mental health issues, herbs, nutrition, exercise and gardening. I found the two workshops I attended invaluable, and would recommend other Capital Growth networking events to people interested in learning more and connecting with others.'

For more on the Urban Physic Garden go to http://www.physicgarden.org.uk/ and for more on medicinal plants go to:http://www.livingmedicine.org/. Glenda will help run a session on exotic plants as part of WEN's Autumn Gathering Event (see earlier post) on Thursday, October 13 at St Hilda's East Community Centre, 18 Club Row, E2 7EY.